Strange Foods. Jerry Hopkins

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СКАЧАТЬ this all. Bats are grimly prominent in much folklore. The Bible calls it an unclean bird-although it is a mammal—and from India to Ireland to the United States it is regarded as a symbol of death. In many folk tales, the devil takes the form of a bat and there is a belief in much of the Euro-American world that bats will become so entangled in a woman’s hair that nothing but scissors or a knife can get them free.

      Bats may command such a prominent role because they’ve been around for so long-fifty million years, according to fossil evidence—and because they’re so widely distributed and so numerous; it is estimated that one out of every four mammals on earth is a bat. There are more than nine hundred species, ranging in size from the bumblebee bat of Thailand that weighs less than a U.S. penny, right up to some flying “foxes” in South America and the Pacific, with bodies the size of small dogs and a wingspan of nearly six feet.

      They’re not very attractive, either. Their furry bodies look like those of rats or mice; their leathery wings stretch on a framework similar to an opening umbrella; their outsized, translucent ears are ribbed with cartilage and laced with blood vessels; their pig-like snouts are spoked with whiskery projections; and they sleep hanging upside down, clinging to a cave’s ceiling with their feet...well, the picture is not appealing.

      That said, bats are one of the most interesting of nature’s creations, mainly because of their echo-location, or sonar, senses. Similar to radar, which uses radio waves to detect location of another object, sonar uses sound waves to accomplish the identical task: the sound goes out and bounces back, giving bats the precise location of obstacles-they don’t want to be flying into buildings and trees, after all—and prey that may be moving at speed.

      Most of the sounds humans perceive may be counted in hundreds of vibrations per second and humans can, with difficulty, hear sounds with a frequency of, maybe, twenty thousand vibrations per second. Bats hear sounds between fifty and two hundred thousand vibrations per second, and send out a series of clicks at the rate of thirty or so per second. This keen sense of hearing is unequalled in the natural and scientific worlds. Scientists say fishing bats have echo-location so sophisticated that they can detect movement of a minnow’s fin as fine as a human hair, protruding only eight hundredths of an inch above a pond’s surface, while African heart-nosed bats can hear the footsteps of a beetle walking on sand from a distance of more than six feet. It also keeps them from banging into things. Most (but not all) bats are, as the old saying goes, quite blind and able to react to a “sonar” bounce with unerring and astounding speed.

      So, how in the hell does anyone catch one? Easy. It doesn’t take much effort to position several men with a fishing net outside one of the caves from which the bats emerge by the thousands at dusk to feed. A man with a shotgun at such times also can bring down twenty to thirty with a single blast, although when the cook prepares the meal, care must be taken to remove the pellets.

      The easy catch is part of the bat’s appeal, but there’s more to it. Images of the devil and Count Dracula aside, there are millions in the world who believe that eating bats increases fertility and one’s chances for long life and happiness. To the Chinese, a symbol of five bats indicates the five blessings: wealth, health, love of virtue, old age, and a natural death. Eating bats also is believed to improve eyesight and in India, bat oil-made from melted fat mixed with blood, coconut oil, and camphor—is sold as a cure for rheumatism and arthritis. In Cambodia, it is prescribed for a child’s cough. And...it’s low in fat.

      The bat is regarded as food today mainly in Asia and the Pacific. One species of “flying fox” in Guam has been hunted to extinction, but elsewhere they are numerous and the bat is not considered threatened. Probably the most cherished is the fruit bat, found in much of the western South Pacific, including the Philippines, Indonesia, and most of Micronesia.

      The preparation of bat always is simple. Bat has not yet breached the barrier that might one day make it more acceptable to a wider audience, much as emu and kangaroo have done in Australia and various wild game meats have in Africa, where “native” foods are now fashionable and for which chefs dream up fancy recipes. Some day, there may be recipes for Bat Lasagna and Bat Casserole, but for now, it’s mostly soup, with maybe a little ginger, soy sauce, or coconut cream.

      Grilled bat is a local speciality of the foothills of the mountain range separating Burma and Thailand. Limestone provides abundant caves for the bats, and several small restaurants near Ratchaburi (about an hour and a half’s drive west of Bangkok) serve them whole, grilled, or fried.

      Eating bat may also be difficult for those put off by its appearance on the plate. Rabbits don’t look like rabbits when they are served, after the flesh has been hygienically distanced from any resemblance to living creatures, but bats often do still look like bats. Because most bats available for eating are small, and they are generally grilled or deep-fried, the entire creature may be cooked and consumed, including the wings, head, and brittle bones, bringing a crunchy sound to the table along with the undeniable reminder of what you are eating. Alternatively, the bat may be skinned, the head and wings removed—they contain only a little meat, after all—and the body cut into cubes for soup or stew.

      A word of caution: most species exude a somewhat pungent odor as they cook. This can be alleviated by the addition of chili peppers, onion, or garlic, or any combination. (An American friend living in Indonesia says that the cook’s consumption of several bottles of the local beer also helps.)

      More Reasons to Love a Bat

      The larger species additionally are hunted for their skins and bat guano, the droppings deposited inside caves, valued for more than a century as an excellent fertilizer. In the wild, important agricultural plants, from bananas, breadfruit, and mangos to cashews, dates, and figs rely on bats for pollination and seed dispersal. A single brown bat can catch and eat six hundred mosquitoes in one hour and the twenty million Mexican free-tails that live in a large cave near Austin, Texas—the largest urban colony in the world, a tourist attraction—eat two hundred fifty tons of insects nightly.

      There’s a bat that lives on my street in Bangkok. I don’t know where he or she hangs out during the day, but I see the solitary creature, swooping unevenly in the purpling dusk-sucking up mosquitoes, I guess. I don’t know why I see only one. I do know that every time I see this small animal I remember cocktail time in Saigon.

      Grilled or Barbecued Bat

      6-8 bats

      Salt and pepper

      4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

      4 chili peppers, de-seeded and finely chopped

      Remove hair by singeing the bat over fire, then remove its skin. Remove head and wings if desired. Grind salt, pepper, and garlic together and work it into the meat, leaving it for at least an hour before cooking. Grill on medium heat, or over an open fire or barbecue until crispy. Sprinkle peppers on the meat and leave for about ten minutes before serving, until the strong odor dissipates. Serve with rice.

      Bats have inhabited the great twelfth-century temple of Angkor Wat for hundreds of years, roosting in the dark hollow interior of the famous towers. The two decades of turmoil and civil war in Cambodia left the temple in disrepair. The bat population has since increased.

      This local farmer found a way to supplement his family’s diet by climbing the СКАЧАТЬ