Cooking RED ANT EGGS ABUOS Fresh from the Tree | Piddig, Ilocos Norte, Philippines | Vlog 1146

We're catching and cooking ant eggs from the trees in our backyard! BEST FILIPINO STREET FOOD IN CEBU! - /watch/ojHdiABun3eud PALAWAN 2020 TRAVEL PLAYLIST - /watch/dnou15kVQPXpysqbwh32VmeeJ4-dQdukLP=tsil&w8LhKsGZUKGZu Call me Félix and I'm a schizoid - sometimes schizophrenic - subversive surrealist, who sometimes makes food vlogs, travel vlogs, and everything else in between and well outside the loop (I love literature, critical theory, toroidal metaphysics, quantum physics, and the occult). Here's some travel vlogs: * Popular WATERFALLS in CEBU DESERTED! | Beat the Crowds at Kawasan Falls - /watch/Mi3dDCQ0JnI0d * The TRUTH about SWIMMING WITH WHALE SHARKS! - /watch/k1Olx42f6SXfl * FREEDIVE with SARDINES and TURTLES! - /watch/A3jZ3Vgi-xKiZ I make a lot of food vlogs too, have a couple: + BEEF SOUP for the SOUL - /watch/o6N9ZTlCOqeC9 + Filipino Family and Friends Picnic - /watch/ILRjBiU_j-W_j + Filipino-American reviews JOLLIBEE - /watch/UUjnBxkrEV6rn Some of my food vlogs take place in luxury buffets: + $45 Shangri-la Buffet serves BEST LECHON - /watch/YlEq8i3JrodJq + PSYCHEDELIC Spiral Buffet Review - /watch/QJq8Bm8nh8fn8 Some of the food vlogs I make are shocking, too: + LIVE FULL GOAT served 4 WAYS - /watch/g-ku_1wB0VaBu + First time eating RED ANT EGGS - /watch/Ez79Z7Mod4oo9 + JUMPING SHRIMP SALAD! - /watch/MCuh0pAvHO-vh And sometimes, I just make weird vlogs hard to classify: - The Sandbar Confessions on Kalanggaman Island, or Top 5 Reasons I Hate Travel Vloggers - /watch/g6_rIyCI3PhIr - Mutiny near Bounty Beach and JAMES JOYCE - /watch/4AkQ1Eh-wah-Q *** Ant eggs are rarely eaten in the Philippines, but in the northernmost Ilocano speaking provinces, they are a rather popular delicacy despite their relative obscurity. In this video, we harvest and cook red ant eggs (and red ants) from the tree nests on our family hacienda in the small town of Piddig in the far northwest province of Ilocos Norte. The high season of red ant harvesting and cooking is between February and April, with April signifying the peak as the eggs are at their largest and their sweetest. Red weaver ants build elaborate nests up in the indigenous trees, and in our case, high up in the mahogany trees. Harvesting the nests can be tricky if you don't do it correctly. One method calls for snuffing out the nest with a torch while another person climbs up the tree to collect the nest. The way our hired help collected the ant eggs and red ants was to take an improvised rice sack at the end of a bamboo pole, shake the tree, and transport them into a bowl to be torched and subdued. In the rain of ants, there's a high chance you will get bit by an ant or two. After getting bitten on the neck Dracula style by one of those red ants, it's a quick pinch like a needle injection that goes away in a minute and doesn't leave a mark. Once the ants have been subdued for the most part, we separate the ant eggs from the red ants and cook it in two ways: 1) ANT EGG CUSTARD - Dad's way of cooking the ant eggs is very simple: just place the eggs in a banana leaf with a couple of ants here and there, as well as a pinch of salt. Then, steam them for about 20 minutes. The result is a sweet white corn taste with a delicate texture that pops on contact with your teeth, almost like a hollow couscous granule. The banana leaf imbues some of the sweetness into the ant eggs, lending a taste similar to sweet glutinous rice with coconut milk steamed in banana leaf, a dessert called suman in Tagalog. The ants themselves taste like a gritty, citrus-like sour that plays well with the sweetness of the ant eggs. 2) ANT EGG SALAD OR "HASH" - Our cook, Johanna, made a very savory interpretation of the ant egg dish that visually resembles a mix of a Thai beef salad, quinoa salad, and corned beef hash (the taste is similar to each in some way). Johanna's dispatching of the ants, from harvesting to sifting was impressive, as in the matter of ten minutes, she had ants and ant eggs ready to be cooked. She sauteed the ants and ant eggs with tomatoes, garlic, ginger, onions, and fish sauce. The smell was very meaty with all the aromatics tossed in while the taste mirrored the smell exactly. Eaten alone, the saltiness was very pronounced and accentuated the savoriness in the ants and eggs with the coarse, gritty texture intact. However, when eaten with plain white rice, the white corn sweetness of the eggs magically returns and the dish reaches a harmonious balance. Amazingly easy to eat, meaty, savory, and substantial. This was a stunningly good dish. So, there you have it. Ant eggs are a sustainable protein with some of the savory and sweet qualities we find lucrative in dishes we find more commonplace and palatable. What is your favorite way of cooking and eating ant eggs? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

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