Insect chrysalis
Me and the missus were in a town north of Beijing called Chengde. We'd had a bit of luck the previous night in a restaurant by just pointing to the Chinese words for 'chicken' 'veg' 'pork' etc in the Rough Guide, so we headed into a local tea house (very nice - all flowers and swing seats) with possibly a bit too much confidence.

We managed to order some jasmine tea with ease and I decided it would be nice to have some snacks to go with it. I noticed another couple happily eating what looked like chicken satay - basically chicken pieces on a stick. I got the waiter's attention, and indicated through hand gestures and some grunts that we'd like some of those. He said a few words in Chinese, which I took to be him confirming the order. I nodded and he disappeared into the kitchen.

He returned with a plate of food on sticks. Only it wasn't chicken. Each stick had on it about four round pods, a bit smaller than a ping pong ball. They looked like something designed by HR Geiger. As I looked at the food confused, Mrs Klugman (who had been doing her reading up) said that what we had been presented with was a local dish of silkworm pupae, each pod a chrysalis containing a little worm (or moth/butterfly I suppose depending on how far gone they were). Although we both like to think of ourselves as worldly types we were both fairly revolted. Conscious of the importance of not losing face in the far east, I crunched into the pods, trying not to notice the green gunge that came out. They did taste alright (I think they were dusted with chilli) but Mrs K wasn't going to play and expertly hid the pods in her napkin when the waiter wasn't looking, before chucking them in a bin outside. Who knows, perhaps some beautiful butterflies emerged from that bin a few days later.

*pop*
(JackKlugman, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 11:45, Reply)