Catie: A quick note on Silkworm Pupa.

We’ve seen this stuff around:

Mostly as steaming street food.

And I always knew it was bugs, but I never knew what kind until tonight when I stumbled across it looking up Isaac Toast.

Well, turns out it’s silkworm pupa.

You read that right.   The festering eggs of the worms.

It was a serendipitous discovery though, because just tonight, while having Korean BBQ, the hosts thought it would be pretty funny to bring the foreigners this tempting treasure (sigh).  It was the first time we’d ever seen it up close.

(FYI: it’s no better looking in real life.)

Beondegi, for that is it’s given name (really?  I totally would have guessed “puke worms”), is one of only a couple things I cannot bring myself to try.  Not even a little bit.

Not even the tip of my chopstick.

It is covered in sticky, brown sauce (Read: slime).

It LOOKS like bugs.

So, we did not try it.  But we didn’t give them the satisfaction of being grossed out either.

At least, not outwardly.

And in retaliation, I ate lots of kimchi and all my raw green onions.

And I am certainly hoping they were properly surprised, because they have gross kimchi and their green onion salad leaves something to be desired.

I miss our old KBBQ place.

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