This dish was sweet and very flavorful. Honestly, is on my list of favorite dishes.
I felt great because it tasted great and I was very hungry at the time. However, while I was eating it I wasn't aware that I was eating red ant eggs because neither I nor my peers could see them. We thought it was chicken and rice! Our homestay mother and her companion continued telling us in Thai, "Khai Mot Daeng," while pointing towards the ceiling, but we weren't sure what they were saying. One of my classmates actually guessed the translation correctly, but we thought it sounded farfetched and couldn't be true. It wasn't until after dinner that my homestay mother brought out a banana leaf crawling with ants that my classmate and I realized we had really just eaten insects. We were both dumbfounded. We agreed that if we had known there were ants in the dish, we wouldn't have eaten it. That was ironic, because it was the first dish to vanish that night at dinner because of its many flavors. My homestay mother made it for breakfast the next day and I ate it again because I liked it the first time. I'd already tried it and loved it, so might as well eat it again! This dish taught me that many times we don't eat things because of what they are. We ignore the prospect of delicious taste, texture or flavor because we don't like the idea of the ingredients. I learned not to knock something until you try it. That philosophy can be used for many things. I never thought I'd say it, because I'm very against eating insects, but now I can say I've eaten red ant eggs and liked them!
