Talk:Fried spider

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An entry from Fried spider appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 13 September 2006.

[edit] Cambodia

The only place in the entire world that eats fried spiders is Cambodia? Eating insects is not only done all over the world, it has been a staple diet of people throughout history. I find it hard to believe Cambodia has a monopoly on spiders. -- Stbalbach 02:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Nobody said it was; this article is describing the fried spider found in Cambodia. If you search sources for "fried spider" I think you might find it is at the current time the world's most well-known and documented example, but if you come up with others, we could add them to the article or rename this article to be more specific, as seems appropriate. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:29, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

It reads like an article about the Cambodian dish, in which case it should probably be renamed to the Cambodian name or something less generic. Which IMO would be better than trying to document all cases of fried spider which is somewhat trivial in the context of insect eating in general. -- Stbalbach 13:29, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I would agree with this last argument. As it stands, this article is about a specific Cambodian dish, and so the name should reflect that. Alternately, a more generic introduction could be added describing spiders as food in a broader sense, then have the current article as a subsection. Though, now that I write that, it seems that it would probably be clumsy to do it that way. On a different subject, should this article be linked to "Endomophagy?" --Raulpascal 17:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC) Sorry, "Entomophagy." --Raulpascal 18:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

"Entomo-" means "insect". "Arachnophagy" might be better. Bluap 20:21, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Y'all are running into the same problem, trying to transpose scientific classifications into popular and culinary ones. If I take a spider , a caterpillar, and an ant, and ask my wife to cook 'em up for dinner, she's going to say "Ewww, you're going to eat BUGS??" (and she's said that, too, although IIRC the phrase was pinches animales, the Spanish language interpretation of what is an animal apparently being a bit broader than in English). Tubezone 16:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I think if any insect (arachnid?) delicacy deserves to have it's own article here, it's that Giant water bug. But there is already one already an article for it under Ca cuong, the Vietnamese name, this water bug is used as delicacy all over Southeast Asia, including Cambodia and Thailand.

Maybe this article (Fried spider) could be fitted under Entomophagy (even though they aren't really insects). Because I don't think that a particular type of fried insect deserves it's own article unless it is notable for something unique. In Cambodia, all sorts of insects can be found in street stalls sold as fried food. They don't just include the tarantulas. There are crickets and such. There is nothing special about it. It's just fried insects (and arachnids). This article can be useful, but it reads like a tourist's guide or blog entry or something, so maybe it can also go into Wikitravel. --Dara 06:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Insects as food

I know spiders are not insects, but making a separate "Spiders as food" category is silly, from a food standpoint, Insects as food is the category they should go in.Tubezone 20:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

They simply aren't insects, and trying to cast them as such reflects some sort of POV. Maybe we should have a parent category: Arthropods as food? Yes? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 20:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

That crossed my mind as well. But arthropods include items like lobsters and shrimp. Classification of animals as cuisine does not always follow their scientific classification, I think you can think of a few examples of that. Tubezone 20:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Arthropods also include crabs, and several sources have mentioned that these are similar in taste and form to soft-shell crabs. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 20:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, so let's say "Insects as food" were renamed "Bugs as food". Would that be acceptable?Tubezone 15:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how global the slang "bugs" is -- the concept of that rough grouping itself might be a bit western-centric. It feels too slangy to be encyclopdic. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:00, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, we're talking about a distinction as a food item here, not a biological classification. "Non-seafood Exoskeletal Creatures As Food" sounds a bit contorted and and unneccesarily complex IMHO. Tubezone 16:13, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

You have a POV that spiders and insects are the same thing as a food item. That's OK -- it's a fair enough POV to have -- but you should try to realize that others, including me, actually, don't share that POV. Since these are matters of opinion, value, and point-of-view, the best course for the encyclopedia is to remain within more clear-cut scientific groupings, even when talking about food items. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drain the Pus First?

I may have seen some outdoors TV show where the guy catches a spider to eat, and said yuck it was filled with pus. Since spiders fill their stomachs with the inner juices of their victims, do you have to drain tarantulas' stomachs first before eating them? Rakovsky (talk) 05:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)