Hornets for lunch?

As we sitting at one the stalls at the Ahuna festival drinking milk tea and snacking on beef liver and intestines (they do them so well here), I.'s cousin A. asked me if I'd ever tried 'hornets' or 'hornets larvae', I quickly said no. Within seconds, he'd gone up to a lady selling food wrapped in large leaves (the leaves are called aküghü in Sumi) and bought two. When he came back he told me, 'They were out of hornets, this is just fish.'

I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Did I just dodge a bullet, or was he pulling my leg? Not that I would mind trying hornets, I just thought an entire package of them would be a little too much. In any case, he said I didn't have to eat whatever was in the package there and then. So I said I'd wait (till I was somewhere more private).

When I got back to the Heritage tourist lodge (there was a break between the morning and evening programmes), I placed the package on the bed since I had no table inside, and - rather like a leopard - I didn't quite feel like eating in public.

I opened the package to find a small mound of rice, as is the fashion here, with a few pieces of pork fat, and another smaller leaf package.

And lo and behold, there were fish in the small package! They were small, and surprisingly easy to eat, the bones being small and soft. However, I still think some of my friends would be a little grossed out by the way the little fishies were staring at me as I ate them.

So those hornets for lunch will have to wait another day.