UQ Museum Studies Field School Blog 2017

I am getting excited about seeing Hanoi and experiencing culture through some of the delicious Viet food. I was browsing online to discover some of the fine soups so that I can try and order some in Vietnamese. This one was interesting: a soup called 'bún thang' from Northern Vietnam. The dish traditionally includes rice noodles, thinly sliced egg crepe, pork cold cuts, and other various additions in a chicken/dry squid broth. A final addition you make to your bowl of soup right before eating is a few drops of cà cuống: extract of male pheromone from the beetle, actual Beetle Juice! In Vietnamese cuisine it’s common to add this extract to dishes like bún thang, and its powerful stuff, a tiny drop of it on the tip of a toothpick flavors the whole bowl of soup. I wonder if, after eating, the diner is made irresistible to female of the Lethocerus indicus species?

Image shows a bowl of whole cà cuống which are also on the menu in some restaurants.