Fried spiders

Even for people who pride themselves on being able to stuff pretty much anything within the bounds of edibility and decency into their mouths and is well initiated with much of Southeast Asia’s exotic cuisine, a deep fried spider or cricket is a daunting prospect.

The eating of spiders is a left-over from dark days of the Khmer Rouge regime when the population were starving and without money, they found the various bugs, spiders and other insects provided some desperately needed food. While Cambodian food supplies are now abundant owing to generally good soil and high rainfall, many of those who survived the Khmer Rouge regime seemed to have developed a taste for this extreme cuisine which can now be purchased throughout Cambodia in markets and street stalls everywhere. Now, spider eating is considered a bit of an acquired delicacy.

So how to they taste? We’ll despite the packaging, which may lead you to believe that you're going to savour the authentic flavour of free-range spookiness, not bad really. Despite looking like a Halloween prop, the feelers are crunchy, the abdomen chewy and all in all, the taste is not unlike that of a potato chip – with legs that is.