Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Hokitika Wildfood Festival 2011

Huhu grubs are the main attraction at the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival every year. Big, fat and juicy, they were being dug out of tree trunks and cooked fresh for patrons at the festival. Do you see the little kid in the picture? He bought a tiny one for fifty cents, stuffed it into his mouth at an alarming rate, proclaimed that it tasted like nothing and then proceeded to run away looking for a place to spit it out without waiting for his change for 20 bucks. I knew it was going to be delicious.
The grilled ones were being sold in small, medium and large sizes.
We chose the large, naturally.
Nick, Cherlyn and I with our huhu grubs.

I would say that huhu grubs taste a bit like crab, but blander. If I every get stuck in a forest and am desperate for food I guess I'd know how to survive?

Clue: Dig some rotten wood for huhu grubs and roast them on an open fire like they're marshmallows. Yummm!
Honeycomb! How is this a freaky food? Okay. I guess wild food doesn't necessarily mean it's an Andrew Zimmern kind of place. It was Delicious with a capital D. Nomnomnom.
Happy faces =)
Ostrich pie. I've had ostrich a few times and I like the taste. However, I think that this pie was made to salty which sort of ruined the taste of the meat =(
Next up, grilled garden snail, served with garlic butter.
Wow, I so did not expect garden snails to taste good! Cherlyn and I wanted to buy more but we were on a budget. Haha!
The Australian stall were selling Kangaroo and Crocodile meat. Friends have told me that they had kangaroo meat in Ozzie and I finally got a chance to try it. I find that this red meat is a bit too salty for me.
Crocodile meat tastes like steak. Mmmm give me more! This made me wish John was here cos he'd like it so much!
Scorpion paired with ginger beer. This was bearable but not something I'd try again. It had a minty taste for some reason. The ginger beer helped eliminate the taste pretty well though.
Huhu bugs in satay sauce on toast and the Thai style Huhu bugs on rice from the same stall. I think huhu bugs are very chewy! Not bad tasting at all!

Would you think I'm weird if I said I am not afraid of eating worms? Someone once told me, "They're just protein" and I agree. This toast was delicious and I wanted to ask what tomato sauce they use. Haha!

Worms in red bull, Nick had to pleasure of trying this one.
He said he couldn't taste the worms at all. I guess the red bull covered it up.
Kina. Looks like vomit, tastes like sea. Gross. Kina is definitely something I would never eat again.
Sea gull egg. I liked the yolk but the egg white was a different story.
Mastitis mousse made from colostrum. I like how this stall made everything look so tempting. And it did taste amazing too!
These colostrum eclairs were possibly the yummiest thing in the festival.
The mayor got a horse semen shot! How sporting is that!
I just bought mine.

I swallowed. (Not funny? Sorry. I thought it was.=P)

It tastes like milkshake. Haha!After that we went to get some lunch at a nearby cafe =) Nice change after all the wild food we just ingested. =P


So that's my experience at the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival. Honestly, I thought it would be scary but most of the food that I tried were pretty damn good! I guess it's because I came to it from a different perspective. ie I'm Asian? For me, I have to try every food once or else I would not be satisfied. I would say that the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival is a definite must-try for the more adventurous traveller!

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like you enjoyed the festival as much as I did. I hope to be back next year, but how do they get more extreme than stallion shots? Kevin at www.justedible.com

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  2. *screams*
    *shivers*
    I know you understand. You know me very well. ;p

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  3. Very interesting post! There is not one thing in this post that I would try.
    Horse Semen? Really? Oh no!

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  4. Calista, Yes I do, but they were cooked tho!

    Yadi, Hmmm the horse semen was the highlight of the event, I couldn't not try it! XD

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