Fried Skuon spiders for sale (Photo: www.wildonkenny.com). This tray contains about 150 of them.By Pamela Phang Kooi Yoong The Star Online (Malaysia)
THE large creature scuttled up and down the front of the lady’s blouse, its legs covered in thick black fur. There were two of them chasing each other on her blouse, often running up and down her arms. We shrank in horror and kept a respectable distance from her.
The rest of the arachnids were heaped high on a huge tray, very much dead . . . or fried would be a better word.
Skuon, famous for its spidery culinary delights, lies on the main road (NR No. 6) from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, Cambodia, about 75km from the capital.
Skuon (pronounced Skoo-wern) is a small, dusty but important town. It is where the main National Road 6 branches towards Kompong Cham and the south-eastern provinces.
Pick-up trucks, taxis and some buses stop at Skuon for a toilet break. The moment the vehicle stops, vendors swarm the bus door even before it swishes fully open. Children call out: ‘One dollah! One dollah!’ (RM3.80), pushing their packets of cut pineapples, mangos and jackfruit under our noses. Ladies carry heavy trays of peeled pomelos towards us. The ladies with the fried spiders do like-wise, all displaying live specimens scampering over their clothes.
We decided that the Intrepid Traveller must check out the fried spiders. They cost 500 Cambodian riels (about 50sen) each and are supposed to be eaten like crab, cracking the body open to savour the juices inside.
We delicately pulled off the legs and chewed tentatively on the crispy creatures. Hmmm . . . not much taste there. We needed to do a Fear Factor stunt and go for the body. Nobody wanted to do that. Everyone feared some sort of goooey juice would squirt out especially since The Lonely Planet Guide-Book had warned: “ . . . filled with some pretty nasty-tasting brown sludge which could be anything from eggs to excrement”.
Our guide Sambath Sao explained that the spiders were originally caught in the fields nearby. But eventually, they were bred in holes in the ground in the villages around Skuon.
No one seems to know how Skuon came to be the centre of this unusual cuisine. There is speculation that it developed when food was scarce during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and people had to resort to eating field mice, rats and worms. It is believed that the big black spiders have high protein content.
Sambath bit into the spider’s abdomen and our faces puckered in disgust.
“Hmmmn, very nice,” mumbled Sambath, and promptly swallowed the spider after a few chomps. We looked at each other in wide-eyed disbelief.
We opted to eat safe sweet pineapples, homemade salted fish and roasted “free-range” duck. We even got some boiled salted eggs.
It was the corn season, with many vendors selling boiled sweet corn. You can either eat it plain or with the preserved salted vegetables. There are even “corn-houses” where you and friends can laze in the many hammocks strung in rows across airy, shaded corridors to savour the sweet corns.
At a nearby rattan shop, we spotted small hand-woven sieves with longish handles. Sambath explained that these were used by villagers to make cheese. I wanted to check out these local village cheeses but Sambath said they were pungent and off-putting.
The French influence still prevails. French bread is sold everywhere. Similarly called baguettes by the Cambodians, these loaves are very fresh with a hard, crunchy crust.
Some are sugared, some have a vanilla or pandan flavour. You can also have a baguette sandwich. One of the best salami sandwiches you can find is at the stall on the left of the Lucky Supermarket in the big Suriya Shopping Center in Phnom Penh.
We came, we saw, but we could not conquer the spider snack of Skuon.
You can contact Sambath Sao at sambathsaoguide@yahoo.com
The rest of the arachnids were heaped high on a huge tray, very much dead . . . or fried would be a better word.
Skuon, famous for its spidery culinary delights, lies on the main road (NR No. 6) from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, Cambodia, about 75km from the capital.
Skuon (pronounced Skoo-wern) is a small, dusty but important town. It is where the main National Road 6 branches towards Kompong Cham and the south-eastern provinces.
Pick-up trucks, taxis and some buses stop at Skuon for a toilet break. The moment the vehicle stops, vendors swarm the bus door even before it swishes fully open. Children call out: ‘One dollah! One dollah!’ (RM3.80), pushing their packets of cut pineapples, mangos and jackfruit under our noses. Ladies carry heavy trays of peeled pomelos towards us. The ladies with the fried spiders do like-wise, all displaying live specimens scampering over their clothes.
We decided that the Intrepid Traveller must check out the fried spiders. They cost 500 Cambodian riels (about 50sen) each and are supposed to be eaten like crab, cracking the body open to savour the juices inside.
We delicately pulled off the legs and chewed tentatively on the crispy creatures. Hmmm . . . not much taste there. We needed to do a Fear Factor stunt and go for the body. Nobody wanted to do that. Everyone feared some sort of goooey juice would squirt out especially since The Lonely Planet Guide-Book had warned: “ . . . filled with some pretty nasty-tasting brown sludge which could be anything from eggs to excrement”.
Our guide Sambath Sao explained that the spiders were originally caught in the fields nearby. But eventually, they were bred in holes in the ground in the villages around Skuon.
No one seems to know how Skuon came to be the centre of this unusual cuisine. There is speculation that it developed when food was scarce during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and people had to resort to eating field mice, rats and worms. It is believed that the big black spiders have high protein content.
Sambath bit into the spider’s abdomen and our faces puckered in disgust.
“Hmmmn, very nice,” mumbled Sambath, and promptly swallowed the spider after a few chomps. We looked at each other in wide-eyed disbelief.
We opted to eat safe sweet pineapples, homemade salted fish and roasted “free-range” duck. We even got some boiled salted eggs.
It was the corn season, with many vendors selling boiled sweet corn. You can either eat it plain or with the preserved salted vegetables. There are even “corn-houses” where you and friends can laze in the many hammocks strung in rows across airy, shaded corridors to savour the sweet corns.
At a nearby rattan shop, we spotted small hand-woven sieves with longish handles. Sambath explained that these were used by villagers to make cheese. I wanted to check out these local village cheeses but Sambath said they were pungent and off-putting.
The French influence still prevails. French bread is sold everywhere. Similarly called baguettes by the Cambodians, these loaves are very fresh with a hard, crunchy crust.
Some are sugared, some have a vanilla or pandan flavour. You can also have a baguette sandwich. One of the best salami sandwiches you can find is at the stall on the left of the Lucky Supermarket in the big Suriya Shopping Center in Phnom Penh.
We came, we saw, but we could not conquer the spider snack of Skuon.
You can contact Sambath Sao at sambathsaoguide@yahoo.com
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