Fear Factor Street Foods of Cambodia which will make you wriggle

Last Updated on April 11, 2020 by Christine Kaaloa

cambodia weird foods
What’s Cambodia’s Fear Factor?

By the time I got to Cambodia, after having visiting much of Southeast Asia, I found there really weren’t many Fear Factor Foods (my list of posts here) I have not seen. ‘Same Same‘… but not too different.

Still, it excites me to explore cultural differences, even if it makes me squirm a bit. Here’s a few street foods of Cambodia which will make you wriggle.

Fear Factor Street Foods of Cambodia

1. Deep Fried Tarantula

It takes a bit to understand Khmer folk.Around 1975-1979, during the the  Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia underwent a food shortage. A-ping (or fried tarantula) are one of the Khmer  foods, which evolved as a result of sheer survival.  Today, a-ping is a popular snack with the Khmer and according to locals eating a-ping is said to increase one’s beauty. Dealers buy the tarantulas from hunters at about 12 cents a piece and sell them for 25 cents.

According to Travel Channel‘s Andrew Zimmern, the taste is said to be like soft-shell crab. I’ll have to take his word for it.

weird Cambodian food tarantula
A layover at a bus station to Kampong Thom, some women were selling local snacks. Woman to the left holds a tray of fried tarantula, a common delicacy of this region.

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Below is an interesting segment from Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods where he follows the entire process a-ping, from the hunting to the cooking and selling.

 

 

 2. Skinned frog

What always impresses me about Southeast Asian delicacies are the quantities in which hunters hunt and gather their frogs and insects. Fried frogs are a common snack, but what would you do with a tub of skinned frogs? Here’s a short snip of Gordon Ramsey‘s episodes on frog hunting and making stuffed frog.  Click here to see a video of how Chef Gordon Ramsey shows us how to hunt and cook Khmer stuffed frogs.

skinned frog in cambodia
How do you skin a frog?

 

 

3. Boiled duck fetus (Khai khao)

A popular high protein delicacy snack in Southeast Asia is boiled duck fetus.  In Cambodia  it’s called pong tea khon, in Laos it’s kai luk,  in the Phillipines it’s  balut and  in Thailand it’s called khai khao .

To eat, it you crack the shell, suck the juice from the top and then dine on the chick fetus inside. Typically, the fetus can be anywhere from 10-17 days of development. Unfortunately, I didn’t buy an egg to see what stage of development the fetus were in, but apparently (and according to this YouTube video here), they can get pretty …developed.

Egg seller weird foods
Egg seller in Phnom Phen
eating eggs in cambodia
Eating eggs in Cambodia

4. Deep fried Bug Snacks

Deep fried bug snacks are common to Southeast Asia. I first tried them in Chiang Mai. According to the World Health Organization, there is protein in bugs and it is a food source that more people should eat due to its low carbon emissions. I don’t know where scientists measured this, but I’ll have to take their word for it.

The deep-fried bug variety in Southeast Asia (see my Laos post) holds an assorted buffet: crickets, bamboo worms, roaches, the list goes on

There are two things insect snacks may inspire for you:

1. You’ll admire the Southeast Asian ability to catch insects in such large quantities.
2. It’ll make you look at a can of Raid differently.

weird foods eating insects
Roadside sellers at a night market selling friend insects
eating roaches
Roaches?
eating crickets in Cambodia
Eating crickets in Cambodia

 

5. Animal parts: Tongue, snouts and innards

In the West, you will never see recognizable animal parts on display.  A lot of our food comes skinned, cut, prepared and divorced from seeing the animal staring back at you. At first impact, the visual display of uncommon animal parts on a food platter, hits you with unmasked horror. Most Westerners are taken aback. Until you see it again and again…

The presentation takes on a slight air of gritty humor. You have to give it up to Southeast Asian culture– at least no part goes to waste! How does snout and tongue taste? It must be tasty enough to get through the visual turn-off. According to adventurous gastronomic bloggers, there are many tasty recipe tidbits you can make with a trail of tongue (here), pig snout (here)  and a trail of innards (here).

How adventurous would you be?

cow tongue weird foods in Cambodia
Easily find this at some street hawker stands

 

6. Shocking meat presentations

You’ve gotta love local markets and the no-nonsense way they go about presenting them.

When you’re a tourist, local markets can be an entertaining playground of crime scene investigations. The only way to know what meats or foods are being sold is to play detective by recognizing the clues or parts. Initially, animal hooves and chicken feet startled me (apparently, hooves are a unique delicacy and soup favorite around the world, while deep-fried chicken feet offer a finger-lickin’ crunch). Then they became old hat. Thankfully, the variety of solvable and unsolvable crimes never end…

How long does it take you to guess the animal this belongs to?

meat in cambodia
Sometimes, you don’t want to ask

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duck in cambodia
Roasted duck.
duck in Cambodia
Those beaks must crunch. if you’re unable to see the slideshow, click here

What have you seen or tried? What Street Foods of Cambodia made make you wriggle?

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Bizarre Foods, Cambodia, Food Guides