Insadong

On Saturday I headed out to Insadong in Seoul. Insadong reminded me of the NW district of Portland, Oregon. The tree-lined streets were narrow and lined with small, various shops. This area is most famous for its traditional style housing accompanied by an ultramodern downtown.

After having tea at a shop that had live birds inside, my friends and I walked through a market area. I stopped at one stall and looked into a boiling pot of some brown substance. I was told it was bandaegi or, boiled silkworm larvae. I paid a woman 2000 won for a small cup filled with the small bugs and quickly popped one in my mouth. My first impression was that it had a pleasant nutty flavor with a paperish texture on the outside and a bean like texture on the inside. On my second piece, my thoughts on bandaegi did I complete 180. The smell was overwhelming, the taste was, well, something I never want to experience again, and the texture was grainy.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve eaten an insect though. A couple years ago my dad and I tried grasshoppers in Beijing. Now, I wouldn’t normally try to convince someone that one bug is better than another, but just so you know, grasshopper legs taste like french-fries and bandaegi tastes like crap.

• Life Lesson #6: Some bugs taste better than others.