« Explanation | Main | Something New at Subway »
April 13, 2006
Bee Babies
Tonight we arrived in Chestertown and sat at the kitchen table with Bob and Sekio as they were finishing dinner. Bob shared his cake, the gift of one of Seiko's longtime Ikebana classmates, and we ate it and drank tea while Seiko told us the story of eating "bee babies" while growing up in Japan after the war.
Bob and Seiko's friend Heidi, with whom we had dinner two weeks ago, makes custom art clothing. High end hand-made garments, often in silk. One of her customers was unable to wear silk, apparently, being allergic not to the silk itself but to a starch secreted by the silkworm in producing the filament. The customer also spoke of an aversion to the smell of silk.
As Heidi was relaying the story of her customer, Seiko was reminded of the smell from her youth, the oily sour smell of silkworms.
There is a Japanese delicacy (the name of which I cannot now remember, but the literal translation of which is "bee babies") that consists of sauteed bee larve. Prepared, they are crunchy and served hot. Once when Bob and Seiko were traveling in Japan as adults and arrived unexpected at an inn in some town, they were served bee babies as a special acknowledgment of their honorable visitor status. Eating the bee babies then, and enjoying them, Seiko realized that she had been misled in youth.
Her grandmother had served bee babies regularly when Seiko was a child. Knowing them to be a delicacy, Seiko tolerated them, in spite of their bad smell and unpleasant texture. In addition to being a special treat, she was told, they were good for her health, an important source of protein when meat was scarce.
What Seiko's grandmother had called bee babies were, in fact, dead silkworms, soaked and reconstituted, treated with soy sauce and sake, and sauteed with ginger to mask the pungent smell. The silkworms were found at the core of every cocoon unwound carefully to extract the precious thread sold for extra money or used to make garments. They tasted terrible but they did represent an important source nourishment. Calling them bee babies was a way of putting a positive face on an unavoidable circumstance, and a means of inducing willful children to do what was the best for themselves in a difficult time.
I have heard so many wonderful stories from Bob and Seiko both over the years. It's time to start writing them down.
Posted by bogenamp at April 13, 2006 09:58 PM
Comments
that is a lovely story ~ sad and sweet :)
i seem to remember bob telling a story about a chariot and a horse that kicked out to the side or something
someone really needed to write that one down because at the time i thought it was terribly funny but now i cant seem to remember why
Posted by: ming at April 21, 2006 01:03 AM