Adventuring Hanoi's scary culinary

Dara

Mam Tom

We began on relatively safe ground with mam tom, or shrimp paste. I had been warned about this potent dipping sauce by several other westerners. The descriptions I had heard were all along the same lines: socks, smelly socks, old socks and so on. But when the dish was placed on the table it looked appetising enough. Next to the noodles, salad leaves, cucumber, tofu, and green rice, the shrimp paste sat innocuously in a shallow dish. Shielded from the air by a couple of millimetres of oil, the infamous paste looked brown, rich, and appetising, not unlike a thick curry. Using our chopsticks, we stirred up the oil and paste into a homogeneous gloop that turned purple once exposed to the air. My friend warned me before I got started, “Little dips. Less is more.”

I took up a piece of tofu, barely touched its corner into the mam tom, and put it in my mouth. I expected a rank, overpowering taste, but it was actually very pleasant. It is exceptionally salty and potent, but as long as you don't use it like gravy, it can actually be a subtle accompaniment. I suspected my friend was hoping for a more violent reaction from me, and so for her next challenge, she brought out the big guns.

Fried scorpions

Having only ever seen scorpions kill cowboys in movies, it was bizarre to see a plate of them in front of me. Fully intact, it looked like they could return to life at any moment. My friend and I took one each and set about figuring how to eat them. Instinctively, I removed the stinger first, which broke off like a dry branch. The insides contained some dark stringy material, which I attempted to suck out, unsuccessfully. Then, making sure that it wasn't moving, I bit into the carapace but no amount of chewing could break through its tough leathery armour. I took it back out of my mouth and the scorpion's body re-expanded like a balloon. It was not until my friend cracked the scorpion's claw that we figured out what we were supposed to do with them.

Like a crab, the meat from the scorpion's claw is dense, but much more dry, and there's a lot less of it. Also, because their body armour is so effective, it requires a lot of work to get the to the meat, and most likely the energy you get from each claw is less than the amount you expend trying to open it up, so I can thoroughly recommend the scorpion diet as a way to cut down on calories. Asides from that, there is little good to say about eating scorpions. After breaking open about six claws each, my friend and I gave up and moved on to our next course.

Ant Eggs

This dish came as welcome reprieve after the scorpions as ant eggs can be eaten freely in heaped spoonfuls. Ours came with chilli, lemongrass, garlic, and Jew's ear mushrooms. The accompanying flavours were well balanced, and the ant eggs themselves have a pleasant texture when they burst between your teeth. On their own, the eggs don't carry a distinctive flavour, and could probably make a decent high-protein substitute for rice.

Mine and my friend's enjoyment of the meal was interrupted briefly by a small red ant that scurried across the table between our plates. The mountains of ant eggs made this ant seem like a lone survivor travelling through the valley of death, protesting the morality of what we were doing. His protest was well timed in advance of what we were about to eat next.

Duong dua (coconut worms)

There is little that can prepare you for the odd experience of eating coconut worms. First of all, they look more like a grub on steroids than a worm. Secondly – and most importantly – they're alive. Any qualms I had about needlessly copper-fastening my position at the top of the food chain came into sharp focus when the coconut worms were served.

The two worms pulsed with a desperate rhythm in a small bowl of fish sauce, chilli, lime leaf, and coriander. Their frenetic movement caused a giddy sense of panic in my friend and I. Were we really going to do this? Yes - we couldn't chicken-out now. I picked up one of the worms with my chopsticks so my friend could take a photo. As she struggled to get the focus and composition right, I could feel the worm wriggling against the chopsticks, moving out of my grip in miniscule increments. Finally, he fell with a splash back into the bowl.

I felt bad for the little fella, but was determined to eat him. I picked him up again, my friend took the photo, and I moved in to eat him, tail first. As I bit into his tough skin, he turned towards me, his mandibles moving like a pair of garden shears. If I wasn't careful, he might eat me before I had a chance to eat him. I set him back down, gripped him closer to the head with the chopsticks and this time bit into his tail until it burst.

Here is the other unexpected thing about coconut worms – they're delicious. The texture is runny, and it's basically entrails that you're eating, but the rich and almost cheesy flavour is wonderful.

My friend sliced the head off her coconut worm and set about eating it – a far more humane way to do it, I thought. I decided to do the same with my own half-eaten, still-alive worm. After I removed his head it sat in my empty rice bowl, its jaws still moving, and it's black eye-like receptors accusing me as I ate the remainder of its body. My friend, seeing this horror show unfold before her, removed the bowl from my sight and suggested we go for ice-cream.

Trung vit lon (duck embryo)

The following day, my friend took me for breakfast. On the menu was boiled developing duck embryo, which is basically the mid-point between the egg and the duckling. I have never really liked boiled eggs, or fried ones, for that matter, but in the spirit of adventure I said I would eat it.

With its veins and head half-formed, this is probably one of the least attractive dishes I've ever seen. I tried the incredibly dense yolk first and chewed on that for about two minutes before I could swallow it. My friend suggested I try the white instead, and sure enough it was delicious.

Eating the soft and almost-meaty duck embryo highlighted one of the essential differences in Eastern and Western approaches to food. In the west, we eat meat products so far abstracted from the original animal that when we come face to face with anything that has not been refined beyond recognition we recoil from the spectre of death and our role in it. Meanwhile, on the streets of Hanoi, the food is often presented as is, and so there is less of a disconnect between the food we eat here and the animal that has died.

And while it is unpleasant to witness, or even to think of the scale of suffering that goes into feeding ourselves every day (unless you're a vegetarian or vegan), it's refreshing to see that in Vietnam people do not shy away from it altogether. Having said that, sometimes it's just nice to have a burger.