'Would the tarantula crawl down my throat?' Danny Yeo eats smoked spider for new food show

You have heard of smoked salmon, smoked ham, smoked duck and other scrumptious smoked delicacies.

But how about some smoked tarantulas?

Local television presenter Danny Yeo recently had the unforgettable experience of eating the arachnid while filming the food documentary Wartime Food in Cambodia.

Speaking to Lianhe Zaobao in a report published yesterday (May 21), he said that during filming, he followed some locals for tarantula-hunting. Once they caught the spider, they first removed its venom and stuck a branch into its heart.

He said in Mandarin: "I was told to find some branches to start a fire… At first I thought they were going to barbeque [the tarantula], but they just smoked it over the ashes and said that it was ready to eat after five minutes."

When asked, Danny said that the hairy spider tasted like soft-shell crab.

He added: "When I took the first bite, I thought that since they just [smoked it] for five minutes, if the tarantula was still alive, would it crawl down my throat?"

Danny also shared his experiences in Cambodia on Instagram earlier this month. In a post on May 6, he documented the process of hunting for the tarantula, killing it, smoking it over the ashes and eventually serving it with some rice over banana leaves.

According to The Washington Post, tarantulas are rich in folic acid, protein and zinc. Eating the spiders became widespread among Cambodians in the mid-1970s due to famine under the Khmer Rouge regime.

Eating spiders is not the only experience that Danny had while in Cambodia. He also tried some fried beetles, fried cricket, fried cicadas and fried frogs during the trip and it's not too bad — some actually tasted like popcorn, he said.

Despite that, he was concerned about food hygiene as he observed that the oil used to fry the insects had already turned black. Indeed, Danny said he had diarrhoea for the next few days after eating the tarantula and insects.

He also admitted that Covid-19 has made him become a more daring person as he definitely would not have eaten the spider a few years ago.

"I am less afraid of death and more daring to try," he said.

However, there is still one thing that he would absolutely not try — monkey brains.

He added: "When I was young, I saw people eating monkey brains on television and felt that it was very cruel, I would not have eaten it."

Wartime Food is currently in production and there are currently no details of the release date.

ALSO READ: 'I was fully prepared to be chased away': Danny Yeo recalls reuniting woman with father after 30 years of estrangement

yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com

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