In the Philippines, a popular thing to eat is balut. This fertilised duck egg is boiled alive and then eaten from the shell with salt, chilli and vinegar including the partly developed embryo inside.

You’re supposed to tap a hole in the top of the shell, sup the savoury liquid and then crunch down the rest of what’s inside which include feathers, bones.

It’s unsurprising that Filipino balut might not sound overly appealing, but it is a duck egg delicacy for a reason.

The consumption of certain insect species in Nigeria wouldn’t raise any eye brow but no Nigerian will look at a tarantula, a giant spider specie and think “lunch”, so it’s perhaps no surprise that these spiders were first eaten by Cambodians starving under the Khmer Rouge regime.

Bizarrely, fried spiders in Cambodia became popular and are now served as a deep-fried snack throughout the country. Apparently they taste a bit like crab, so they probably look a lot worse than they taste.

Titilayo Kupoliyi

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