On The 9thAugust
I was invited to ‘Trov Pheang Ctas’ a remote forest village located deep within
the Svay Leur district . My time there would be spent documenting the
hunt of one of Cambodia’s finest delicacies, Haplopelma albostriatum.
Haplopelma
albostriatum, are a species of tarantula called "a-ping" in
Khmer, and also known as the Thai zebra tarantula, when fully grown can reach
the size of a human palm.
The
spiders are caught using a very primitive simple yet effective technique, where
the hunter will tease the creature from its den by the ways of using a stick to
tickle its web and entice the spider to surface. The spider then makes its
retreat deep into its hole, but no escaping as that’s when the improvised
shovels come into play. Although venomous the tarantulas are not deadly and
there bite has been described as something close to a very bad bee sting.
Once
visable the arachnid is quickly plucked from its hole and grabbed by its
back just in front of its abdomen using 2 fingers with care taken
to avoid a nasty bite from there rather large fangs.
When
caught the spiders are delicately put into small plastic bottles and kept there
until they and ready to eat. The process used to prepare the catch for
eating comprised of filling a bowl with water and jointly drowning and washing
the spider in one easy step. The method used at this particular village was
very cheap and easy, the spiders are tossed in salt and deep fried.
It
is not clear how this practice started, but some have suggested that the
population might have started eating spiders out of desperation during the years
of Khmer Rouge rule, when food was in short supply.
