Recipe - Tarantulas

Stephen Ceideburg
1 Tarantula

Awhile back I mentioned that I thought that it odd that nobody eats
tarantulas because of their close relationship to crabs and the
likefavorite foods in many cuisines. Last night I was watching a show on
a tribe of Amazonian Indians and lo and behold, they were trapping and
cooking the big ol' spiders. And I do mean big. These guys were the size of
blue crabs. I would guess that they're at least eight inches across the
spread legs.

"Take one tarantula..." Not an easy process! First they catch the critters
by luring them out of their tunnels with a long strip of grass. The hunter
then very deftly grabs the spider by the thorax, folds the legs back and
wraps the spider in a leaf for transportation to the camp site.

At the campsite, the spiders are killed. Everything is used. The abdomens
are removed and stripped of eggs. The eggs are wrapped in a leaf and
roasted over a fire to produce a spider egg omelette. The bodies are tossed
directly onto a fire to singe off the hair and to cook the meat. When
they're done, the legs and thorax are cracked open and picked just like
when you eat a crab. After the meal the fangswhich are a good inch and a
half long are used as toothpicks. It was emphasized that the spiders
taste *very* much like crab.

Posted by Stephen Ceideburg

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