Author: daniel

A couple of weeks ago the lady and I went to Macro to do a little shopping and pick up a few curiosities. If you don’t already know, Macro is like a supermarket for shops and restaurants. When you buy a packet of out of use-by chips from the corner store run by an old Chinese lady, she probably got them from Macro! We go to Macro because they have cheap produce that’s very fresh, but it’s always fun to look at some of the stranger items on offer.

Ever wondered where restaurants get their frogs’ legs from? Well now you know. Macro! God knows where Macro gets them from. Vietnam, probably.

Including crocodile is a little pedestrian. It sounds very exotic, but if you take this home and put it on the barbeque you’ll probably be disappointed.

Boar is… boy pigs right? The stuff that Obelisk eats. So this is technically pork, right? I guess the subtext is that this is wild boar? Maybe I’ll buy some one day and see how it compares.

Frozen cow… boobs? Not especially cheap. Don’t recall seeing this on the menu recently.

Beef gallbladder. In bile. Who eats this stuff? Whomever they may be they’re paying Bt260 a kilo which would get you a nice steak a few rows over.

There’s a lot of excitement among scientists when a giant squid washes ashore on the beaches of New Zealand or somewhere and everyone scrambles for a look before it rots away. They should just come to Macro.

The label says snapping but the tag says soft shelled but no matter how you cut it, you’re eating a turtle.

OK kids, it’s time for the main event. I’ve become accustomed to seeing street vendors pushing around a cart of fried bugs and have been known to purchase some as a snack, even when nobody is watching. I’d never reflected on where the vendors get their bugs from, I just assumed they found them under the mattress each morning or something. I actually doubt they’re buying them at Macro as they’re not even cheap by the kilo but if you would like to try your hand at poached silkworms or fried bamboo grubs, this is the place for you.

This one is pretty tempting. These little buggers don’t look very inviting but deep fried with salt and spice they’re delicious.

Crickets are kind of a staple in the bug-eating world. Crunchy and tasty but without the big legs that get stuck in your teeth like grasshoppers.

And that’s it for this shopping trip. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour of Macro and worked up an appetite.

A couple of these have been hanging out on the washing line.

I had a look in Birds of Thailand but wasn’t able to decide if these were sunbirds or spiderhunters. The trouble is that the sunbird males have a blue bib.

It turns out we were looking at a pair of females. Confusion was cleared when a male turned up. He performed a brief courtship dance and flew off with one of the females. Then this appeared.

Sunbirds build a hanging nest out of spiderwebs and, in this case at least, plastic raffia.

The nest is complete now but I’ll need to take some more photographs. Sorry about the poor quality of the shots but I’m shooting through flyscreen and the birds don’t seem to want to work when it’s sunny.

Now the nest has finished they’ve gone off somewhere for what I read is a week. Probably fattening up before spending all day sitting on the eggs.