Anyone for beef dick?

It seems Cambodians will eat anything. Borne out of necessity and owing to a turbulent history that often left them with a severe lack of food, one might assume that certain items on a modern menu would be dropped in favour of more appetising fare during more peaceful and prosperous times. Not so. It seems old habits die hard. Often, at the end of a hard day’s quest to be the next intrepid explorers, declaring that we could eat anything was perilous; we could never be sure what we’d be presented with. Next to more conventional items that one expects to see in Asia like rice or noodles, it was not uncommon to see rats, snakes, spiders, crickets, beetles, ants or the clearly more acceptable ‘beef dick’ on a Cambodian menu. Snakes could be chosen live from a tank like seafood and cooked as desired, and I am sure there is some ungodly way to eat rats, but thankfully we never had to find out. Insects were invariably fried or deep-fried, which is clearly a succinct term used for making things taste better or simply just palatable. We only ever received advice on how to eat spiders; picking them apart and shelling them like a crab seemed like the preferred method over taking pot-luck and biting into them. Although, alarmingly, if using the latter method, one is advised to steer clear of the abdomen where some pretty foul-tasting brown goo can be found. Right you are then. In that case, before the next time I eat one I’ll make sure I’ve taken my entomology course just so I can be sure where it is.