T H I S+W E E K Gonzo Congo Redmond O'Hanlon hunts dinosaurs in the African jungle By Don George, Editor Fetishes and fossils A talk with Redmond O'Hanlon Kidnap my heart By Alison Buckholtz An Arab taxi driver takes a lone American where she never planned D E P A R T M E N T S The Surreal Gourmet By Bob Blumer Dahling, you taste fabulous! > Mondo Weirdo More strange food tales Postmark By Tessa Souter Harlem on my mind Readers' Tips and Tales The ugly American - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LA S T+W E E K Tuesday, June 10 Tiger Leaping Gorge By Simon Winchester Greed menaces a Chinese treasure A full list of all Wanderlust articles

MONDO WEIRDO E V E N+M O R E+S T R A N G E+F O O D+T A L E S From ducks and chickens to spiders and snakes, the planet's most intriguing meals. BY DON GEORGE | three weeks ago I introduced Mondo Weirdo as a place to celebrate the planet's grand diversity with tales from our far-flung travels. I began the party by asking for strange food stories, and we have received some stomach-boggling ones, four of which we printed last week . Four more appear below. Now I'd like to expand the conversation by asking you to tell your tales of other strange experiences around the world -- for example, what's the wackiest festival you've ever seen? Or the most mind-opening ritual? Of course, keep sending those food stories too! Send your tales to wanderlust@salonmagazine.com. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Chickens and roaches and snakes -- oh my! In many Asian stores here in the United States you can buy chicken or duck eggs with the embryo in them. In Philadelphia duck eggs are 75 cents apiece. You take them home and cook them by boiling. Eat warm, along with feathers, beaks and so on. I don't know whether other Asian peoples aside from Filipinos eat them. They are called "balut" and are pretty old hat to tell in the strange food category. Actually they are quite tasty. In Manila I think the best duck balut comes from the areas around Laguna Lake, where ducks are fed a special diet with shellfish from the lake, which is supposed to make the balut taste supremely. They are peddled mostly around the early evening period by vendors, who keep them warm in baskets in layers of hot damp towels. A friend told me of a particular mountain tribe which has a chicken dish called pinikpikan (loosely translated as "pounded" or "beaten up"). The live chicken is beaten up with a stick until it dies with a lot of hematomas just under the skin. Then it is prepared/cooked in some manner (of which I have no idea); I get the impression that hematomas are found to make it tasty, or something like that. Some small insects can be cooked in garlic, vinegar, salt and pepper, etc. Examples of this are field roaches. (At least we called them that, but I don't think they are closely related to Blatta germanica at all. They have hard shiny greenish wings.) I have likewise done this recipe with May beetles -- you know, those beetles that drop from the trees after the first heavy rains of the year, typically in May. They are especially plentiful in the provinces but you can find them even in Manila, where some 8 million people are packed like sardines, and a nice tree with fresh foliage after the May rains is some sort of minor miracle. Also, a lot of people, including me, cook "apan" (locust) this way. When doing the recipe above, one has to remove the wings and feet and maybe the heads before washing them thoroughly. The concoction is best eaten warm, and the portions are crunchy (you bet!) yet tender inside (you bet some more). In the provinces men use them for finger food with "tuba" -- slightly fermented coconut sap. Yes, you can get drunk with it. I may not be too accurate with some facts here, because I have not cooked stuff like this for 20 years or more. I once went to my grandma's village, where the menfolk had just killed a huge snake. Portions were cut and cooked in a stew with tomatoes and onions. I was served some in a bowl and they looked a little bit like portions of whole tuna that you can get in a can here, but I chickened out. -- Nelson T. Geraldino - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Be kind to your friends in the swamps Here in the Philippines, one of our favorite delicacies is called "balut." Boiled day-old duck embryos. They are hawked up and down the streets, kept warm inside a basket covered with a cloth, by peddlers who shout in a distinctive sing-song manner, "Balu-uuut!" One taps the more hollow part of the shell, peels a bit off and sprinkles the inside with a smidgen of salt. Then one slurps the hot and flavorful "soup" inside the shell. With that done, one proceeds to peel off more of the shell, leaving some of the shell to hold on to, to be able to bite into the soft, slightly feathery and succulent duck baby inside -- bones, webbed-feet and all -- which is often nestled in the bright yellow, rich tasting, chewy yolk. Last but not least is the hardened albumin at the very bottom of the remaining shell. Some don't like it. Others, of the opinion that it is a great source of protein, chew on it. Balut is often enjoyed with beer or the local gin. -- Jigs Javier - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Probably they'd smoked too much Traveling through North Africa on an overland trek in 1971, our group stopped in the lackluster Tunisian town of El Djem, notable only for its gigantic, more-or-less preserved Roman amphitheater. Lunch was served at an adjacent greasy spoon, where the obligatory (i.e. only) entree was spaghetti with mystery meat. Said mystery meat was stringy and tough, but not obviously rancid or fetid, so we ate as much as we could. Back in the van I asked our driver, an old desert rat, what we had been eating. "Camel meat," he answered. I was suitably impressed, and asked if camel preparations were common in that part of the desert. "Nah," he said, "you'll only find it served when the camel has died from old age or illness." -- Jonathan King - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Would you like a little balut with that? While working in Cambodia in 1992-93 I was told by a friend of mine, also working there, that during her travels in the hill country of northeastern Cambodia, she had seen on sale in the local market of a small village -- well, what would you call it exactly -- maybe tarantula kebabs. That's right: grilled spiders on a stick. They were quite popular it seems. For this arachnophobe, it's hard to reach a higher level of food gruesomeness. -- Name withheld - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - How about you? Do you have a weird travel tale to share? Send it to wanderlust@salonmagazine.com. And join our Table Talk discussion on travel and food.

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