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 like--favorite 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 fangs--which 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

Collected by Bert Christensen
Toronto, Ontario