The day after the pig harvest our task was to create a meal out of entirely foraged foods. Having spent several days learning about all of the different plants and their uses we felt fairly well prepared. Some people harvested rattan, bamboo, peppers, and herbs. I was in the protein group, so we went fishing.
After many unsuccessful throws of the net, we decided to "cheat" and went to the stock pond to collect catfish. We also collected a handful of frogs.
Taking them back to the kitchen we poured salt into the bag of fish to kill them. A Thai helper grabbed a frog by the legs and wacked it on concrete several times. It was terrible. The frog bloated and started to bleed from the mouth. We asked the Thai kitchen staff if we could pour salt into the bag of frogs to kill them too. They said we could try. It seemed to work and the Thai women were happy to employ this alternative method.
Next we scrapped the scales off of the fish, slit their throats and pulled out their organs. As we snapped their jaw (which was apparently an essential step in the process) the fish would spasm. The first time I was taken off guard and shrieked.
The frogs were even worse to deal with. Pi Apat’s wife showed us how to disembowel a frog. It was gross. One brave member of our group reached to try and copy Pi Apat’s wife only to find that the frog was still alive.
Apparently the frogs had only been temporarily knocked unconscious by the salt—not killed. The frogs came too and started to jump out of the bowl and across the yard. We shrieked and chased after the frogs. Pi Apat’s wife continued to remove the organs from the frogs even though they were still alive. We kept screaming. I’m not quite sure how it is possible, but one frog, having had all of its internal organs taken out, started to crawl up and out of the “dead” frog bowel. It was terrifying.
I’m convinced people could hear our group yelling for miles. The meal was pretty tasty, but I’d had enough of killing stuff for a while…
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