Ant eggs are common food for people in Thailand’s northeast. The eggs of red ants are good material to cook. They are clean and high of protein nutrients. Red ants eat mango leaves so their bodies taste like a squirt of lime, but their fresh eggs are fatty and sweet, they resemble the soft fluffy ends of mini barley grains, or soft ’rice bubbles’ and have a delicate taste, soft appealing texture and a slightly tart edge.
I talked to my friend who is from Kalasin province in the Northeast. She said ant eggs are her family’s favorite food. A big smile was suddenly shown on her face when talking about it. She also told me about red ant eggs’ hunting;
“Big red ants live in mango trees in a nest, sometimes on the very top. We need a basket tied to one end of a long stick and a bucket full of water. We poke the ant nest until the eggs fall into the basket. When we bring it down to the ground it’s covered with very upset red adult ants! We put the whole basket into a large bucket of water and use the stick to stir the water, the eggs sink down to the bottom and the ants climb up on the stick and we just shake them off.”
I told her that I tried Koi Khai Mot Dang ( Spicy Raw Ant Eggs Salad) for the first time yesterday. I was afraid to eat it, my brain was imagining all sorts of unusual stuff, but I closed my eyes and had one bite because I wanted to know what it tasted like. It was so spicy that I couldn’t taste the eggs, I only felt juice came out when I chew them.