Beondegi

I've had a lot of strange foods and I consider myself to be pretty much open minded when I try new foods. Being Chinese, I've had dog, crocodile, turtle, chicken feet, assorted gizzards, tripe, intestines, blood and Spanish sweetbread. Typically, weird foods are not so weird to me.

Meet beondegi-better known as silkworms. The Koreans eat silkworms with beer. It's kinda like the equivalent to beer nuts in Korea. They offer it in bars and sell it canned in marts. Its a pretty normal thing to eat beondegi here.

I had the opportunity to see it up close about a week ago. I went out with Gloria and a few of the other SMOE teachers to Sinchon. We were served these funny looking creatures and while I've heard of them before I didn't think I'd run into them so soon. The smell was kinda mud/dirt-like. They were sitting in a liquid but looked crunchy.

Drew the brave wayguk was the first to try the silkworms and after much convincing Gloria and I each had one. The consistency was chewy in the middle. The outside not at crunchy as I initially thought. The flavor-definitely memorable. It literally tasted wet dirt with something more unpleasant. I took two bites before I decided I needed to wash it down with a full cup of water. Here's where the night gets interesting.

In the video, is Drew and Joe. Drew agrees to eat 10 if Joe eats 1. Check out the video for the outcome.