eG Foodblog: Peter Green - Bringing Bangkok back home

[Peter Green]

An interesting option in Bangkok street dining is the late night.

Real late night.

Let’s look at Sukhumvit, and we’re talking lower Sukhumvit,where the sidewalk pavement lease runs in shifts. During the day there are the usual t-shirts, DVDs, hair clips, blackjacks, and tasers and such. This runs into the early evening, making the sidewalks somewhat tortuous.

Once the late night kicks in they move out, and a series of casual dining and drinking spots take their places. This really gets going around 1 or 2 in the morning, when the pollice shut down the bars in the area.

At that point, some of the dining venues end their shifts, and the fortune take over, and the sidewalk has completely changed from TinTin shirts and flashing lights to rattan mats on the ground and the tarot cards laid out.

If I’m suffering insomnia this is a lot of fun. I mean, this is people watching to beat Cannes.

The downside of this is that you are definitely not advised to be flashing a camera about. A lot of these people are somewhat leery of having their pictures taken.

What do we see on hand? Hot pots are particularly popular, small crowds clustered on mats around a little charcoal brazier with a steel pot of broth atop, everyone dipping in their meats.

Some of the seafood places are quite done up, with large trolleys of fish, shrimp, and lobsters under ice. They’ll wok these up or do them in a soup.

Ducks and hunks of pig are hanging on display, ready to be quickly cooked and served up with rice from the big pots in the trolleys.

And satays galore, with a wide range of meats and extra bits skewered on (pineapples, mushrooms, chilis). My favourite is the skewer of intestines with chilis.

And there’s plenty of dried squid and other stuff, although I seldom see much in the way of bugs, at least not at this time of the night. The bug stands are there in the day (or at least I’ve seen them there in the past), but not in the wee hours.

And, you can get Beer Lao at many of the spots here. Peel the foil back from a cold bottle, get a seat in the shadows, and watch the animal show. Occassionaly one of my disreputable comrades will stumble by, and I’ll wave him in for a chat if he’s coherent.

Once far enough away from the wilder sections, I did pull out the camera to shoot my late night top-up. I’d wanted something simple, as I wasn’t too hungry, and ordered a dish of stir fried bean sprouts with rice.

Then I noticed she was cooking something for someone else as a soup. With my mangled Thai/Lao I managed to figure out that she was cooking fish stomachs.

These looked good, but I really wanted bean sprouts (I get that way at night), so passed. Somewhere in one of my cookbooks I’ve got something on the handling of fish offal. I’ll look that up later.

The sprouts came the way I’d hoped. Warmed through, and the heat had acted upon the sprouts just enough to give some flexibility, without ruining the crunch too much. A bit of oyster sauce in the fry, and I added some nampla and chilis to wake me up.

This with a bottle of cold Beer Lao is an interesting way to spend the pre-dawn hours.

I wonder what my fortune says?

[Peter Green]

It’s the weekend for us here. That means a late start for the spouse, and I can get some things taken care of (like the earlier posts). Another pot of coffee is on, and I’ve got breakfast inside of me. Serena’s at basketball, and the world is in order.

It won’t last long.

Pancakes today. A good thickness, enough air inside to spring, and a bit of crisp to the outside.

We (okay, I mean Yoonhi) drags back maple syrup from Canada every year. This is a requirement in our house, as I won’t eat pancakes without proper maple syrup. At least, that’s what I’d told Yoonhi for years.

When we were living in Cairo in the 80s, Yoonhi developed the excellent habit of doing everything from scratch. There wasn’t a lot of choice, seeing as you couldn’t buy much beyond excellent produce and hunks of water buffalo. She started making pancakes then, and I complimented her on the quality, “as good as my Mom would whip up on a weekend morning”. But then I whined about not having maple syrup, and how I wasn’t the sort of person to make do with the Aunt Jemima syrup we’d inherited at that time.

All well, and good, and then my parents came for a visit a couple of years into our tour.

Mom: “You make pancakes from scratch? Don’t you have a mix?”

Yoonhi:”Noooo…….I thought you made all your pancakes from scratch?”

Mom:”Whatever gave you that idea?”

Yoonhi:”And about Peter only using maple syrup?.......”

Lesson of the story: always keep your wife and mother on bad terms so they never compare notes.

[Cadbury]

Lesson of the story: always keep your wife and mother on bad terms so they never compare notes.

←

My husband learnt this the hard way - we live on a farm 150m from his parents.

Enjoying your blog.

[Peter Green]

Livin’ In The Fridge – part 1

I promised this, and now I’ve lived to regret it.

We’ll do this in three parts. The “drinks” fridge, first. I don’t swear as much when I go through it. This is the original fridge that the company provides with the house. Obviously it wasn’t going to do the job on its own, so we bought fridge #2, which we’ll get to later.

this parts pretty much in control; mixers, soft drinks, juices, and a bit of backlog on the right.

There’s the mandatory gochujang some suspicious looking kmichi. That stuffs been in there plotting since July. It’s got me thinking about making some chigge.

If I pull out the gochujang we can see the daen jang paste collection, and some Malagassy peppercorns in brine.

What’s this doing in there? More important, how long has it been there?

And the door isn’t too bad, either. Boy, things look better in pictures than in real life! Our usual selection of soys, yellow bean sauces, ketsups, maple syrup, masking tape, dried mushrooms (how’d they get there?), shrimp paste, crisco, and there’s even a can of the coconut water I like for ceviches (the green can).

The lower shelves, where the veg and fruit would normally go, are stuffed with dried stuff. Dried dates from Korea, dried lily flower, bonito flakes, fungus…

I should be doing something with this.

Hey, this is where my Valrhona chocolate nibs got to!

This is my carefully guarded horde of Szechuan peppercorns from Chengdu. I figure if I keep them sealed and chilled, the potency will last longer.

You can always find a use for M&M’s

The cheese drawer is the land of chocolate (why aren’t my nibs up here?). We do chocolate cheesecakes once a month or so, and moles every so often, and so there’s a big demand for this from our ktichen. Plus, we just like chocolate.

Now you can cover your ears. I hate rooting around in the freezer. Stuff invariably falls out and lands on my toes. It wasn’t so bad when we had a standing freezer in the garage, but it died in June, so everything has found its way in here or the pantry now.

The big white bottle would be simple sugar syrup that Yoonhi caught me storing down below. The other coloured water bottles are brown chicken stocks. There’s some banana leaves, cha siao bao that are there when we need them, and more odds and ends.

If we root some of this out we find Yoonhi’s stores of gochugaru (chili powder), and some stray Thai curries. Also white peppercorns.

There’s some veal hoofs. I really should make more stock. And some belly meat.

Our last Spring salmon is back in there. Scud’ll replenish our stocks when he returns to visit in December. With the new weight limits the airlines are using to gouge us, Yoonhi was too paranoid about going over her limits, so she didn’t bring back the usual cooler full of delights.

We had to overnight one time at Heathrow with a cooler of salmon. The hotel (the Meridien, I believe) was kind enough to let us keep the fish in their kitchen fridge (this was in the less-paranoid days). The next day, as we were checking out, the chef stopped by to ask out of curiousity what was in there. When we told him it was 30kg of wild BC salmon he started banging his head and wishing he’d know, as larceny would’ve been in the offing.

And, finally, the door. This is curry central, where I keep my working collection of greens, reds, sours, massamans, and whatevers on hand.

You’re going to be wondering about why a lot of this stuff is in here. One concern is the heat. Even with a/c, the house runs around 25 centigrade year round. The other issue is bugs. Yoonhi is more concerned about extra protein in the food than I am. But when the weather gets hot, you get little “sugar” ants coming into the house by any which way they can, and once they find some food stores that suit their fancy, they get busy. So, if you can keep it sealed, then do so.

Okay, that’s disaster area one down. Let me rest, stop cursing, and I’ll look at the next one.

Edited September 27, 2007 by Peter Green (log)

[Peter Green]

Serena has suddenly decided that she needs to make a sourcream pound cake. Where did this come from?

Okay, I got an answer. It’s for Girl Scouts – her “sign of the sun” badge, earned by serving the community. Serena figures if she serves the Filipino lifeguards cake for their iftar (sundown meal in Ramadan), that that’ll do it.

Filipino lifeguards eat a lot of sour cream pound cakes?

Meanwhile, we’ve done up a real quick lunch. Fried rice with chinese sausage. First, the sausage.

Then some quickly chopped veg.

And then the leftover rice from last night.

portion it out on the plates, and we’re good for another couple of hours.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen….the other fridge waits……

[Peter Green]

Livin’ In The Fridge – part 2

The drinks fridge I can deal with. I work out of it a lot, and things kind of make sense. The main fridge is another matter.

Now we’re on a voyage of discovery.

The cold compartment isn’t really too bad. The family was gone since the start of August, so I was able to eat things down a bit. Hopefully we’re not going to stumble on too many science experiments.

Everyone here (except for me) has grown really fond of strawberry labna, which is what’s in the white containers on the right. It’s a good hot weather drink (and the containers are good for freezing small quantities of stock). The pink stuff is just pickled gingeer.

I take it back about the science experiments. Somebody stored the unused whipped cream in here awhile ago. I’d better check on the age. The ziploc has my Chengdu chili paste that I need for mapu tofu (and other stuff). The only foie gras I have in stock right now is this. I need to get on our local grocery about bringing in some proper foie again.

If we turn our attention to the door, it’s not too bad either. Lots of mayonaise (The White Man’s Gochujang), some truffle juice I really should use up…

Serena’s chocolate sauce in the “drain” position, various condiments, hoi sin sauce in squeeze bottles, and some teas way down below.

some watermelon. One thing that is really, really tasty over here is watermelon. When I try some back in Canada, it’s just flat. The melons here and in Egypt are just packed with sugar and flavour. I should do a sherbert! There are some olives int the white container (again, very good over here), more gochujang, and there’s something grated in the plastic container in the front. Ikea mkes these containers. They come with metal grates, so you grate directly into the tub. Much tidier.

The cheese tray is pretty subdued, as we’ve been away. Some parmesan and chedder, fish protein sheets down below, and some tortillas for breakfasts.

and there’s the lower tray. You can never have enough spring onion on hand. I won’t bother with the Thai stuff, as we went over it the other day.

Now the freezeer.

Starting at the top, we have what you’d normally expect. Ice cream, Serena’s popsicles (that I messed up last night when I was putting things away), and some brown chicken stock. I’ve been wondering what chicken stock popsicles would taste like…..but Serena still hasn’t forgiven me for serving here vanilla and cheese ice cream, so maybe I’ll wait a bit.

You’ll have to turn your head for this one. Trust me, you’ll feel better. This is where things get rough. Stuff just sort of gets crammed in here, and then it’s a free for all trying to dig things out. This is also the final resting place of fresh Thai ingredients that I don’t get around to using. Much of it will work well frozen for taste, but you lose the texture. I take no responsibility for the bananas, however. That was someone else.

This stuff is going to have to be pulled out. Here’s some pesto. Whenever they have fresh basil at the shop, we make pesto. We used to have bushes in front of our house, but the spider mites got to them in the second year, and that was the end of that. There’s some shredded banboo, and I think those are crab sticks udner the pesto.

Here’s some of the lemon grass and other stuff. What’s that orange stuff?

When did we get this?

I am definitely going to have to make veal stock.

These are neat. Dessert truffles. We’ve talked about these in this thread . If the weather is good, we’ll get these fresh around October or November. They’re like a potato in size, before you start cleaning them of sand. Excellent in risotto, or just pan fried with butter and garlic.

This would be the carnivores’ level, I suspect.

It’s good to see there’s still some of this left. Marinated uni (Korean style). This, some dried seaweed sheets (gim) and rice and you have a meal.

Found the cranberries! We’re ready for Canadian Thanksgiving on the 8th. Cranberry stuffing is our favourite for the dead Turkey meal.

This is a Thai meatloaf. I’m going to use this to do Susur Lee’s prawns with sai eua soon.

This is getting used, too, before the end of the year.

And here’s some sai eua, my favourite Chiang Mai sausage.

That’s it. There’s more stuff in there, but I think I’ve reached my limit. Plus, I’m beginning to feel like Kurt Russel in John Carpenter’s The Thing. I think I heard something moving back in there……

Edited September 27, 2007 by Peter Green (log)

[Domestic Goddess]

LOL, Peter I am clutching at my stomach, laughing over your posts and pics.

[Peter Green]

Thanks, Doddie!

Hey, when's the Icheon Rice Festival? I just read about it in a 2004 Korea guide, so I hope it's on again this year.

Cheers,

peter

Edited September 27, 2007 by Peter Green (log)

[Peter Green]

I should’ve titled this blog Bring it on home, as this tour is pointing out to me that I need some counselling on my shopping habits when I’m abroad…..alright, Yoonhi’s pointing it out to me, or has been for some time.

At this point, I’ve come in from the cold. We’ll do the pantry, and that’s it for today’s tours.

You had the teaser shot of the pantry yesterday, so we might as well go full frontal. Bamboo worms. The kids love them. These are getting a little old now, but I find that a quick refry crisps them up again. Better than nachos, say I.

Along with Thai curries, we’re also addicted to Korean curries (I’ll let the Japanophiles take umbrage with that). Those bricks of Glico, and S&B, are good enough to eat like chocolate bars. Yoonhi’ll have words if she catches me, however, and the yellow cuticles always gives me away the next day.

The McVitties we use in baking, and the Choco-Pie is just a Korean thing. Taste a lot like Wagon Wheels, which, as I recall, are chocolate coated wafers of cardboard.

On the right is some more candied tamarind, and there’s some candied shrimp beside the coconut chips (which I’m quite content with as a snack, although a little sweet).

some cheap balsamic (the good stuff is in the shelves by the sink), condiments, backup hoi sin sauce, and our dwindling supply of corn flour (we’ve been eating a lot more polenta this year).

You can never have too much coconut milk around the place. We do run dry regularly.

And no self-respecting Anglo like me is going to be caught out without a backup jar of Helmann’s mayonaise. The stuff in the zip loc is fun. Semi-dry candied seaweed with sesame. There’s another jar of pu’er

Here’s the rest of the pu’er tea collection. The really good stuff is almost gone. There’s just a bit left in the zip, but it goes a long way. The other cakes are just so-so, but still good, and the suppositories are very good. It’s just the way they look.

Of all the teas, I probably like pu’er the best. I don’t know if I hold with the slimming element, seeing as I’m not getting any smaller, but I love that dark, full flavour, but without any bitterness.

More chocolates, and some dried beef. Plus there’s that odd medicinal mix of seahorses, bugs, snakes, starfish and berries we picked up in Guilin (there’s a description of it back in the China thread).

I collect dried mushrooms, okay? Is that a problem?

We’ll use these up fast enough.

Shin ramyun is our brand of choice here. It’s available on an irregular basis, so we load up when we can.

And I love this stuff. It’s a river weed that you find in the tributaries of the Mekong around Luang Prabang. I talked about it in the Lao thread. This has been dried with sesame and garlic, so all you need to do is cut it into bite sized squares, and give it a quick wash in hot oil. It’s a little greasy on the fingers, but it’s good. Oddly, I like this with a vodka martini.

and, of course, there’ll be rice. Calrose and sticky here.

Red and more glutinous rice….

There’s some basmati for pilafs, and I know there’s a sack of Thai jasmine around here somewhere.

I found a source for cheap salt, so I’m using the stuff in the sack with the blue squiggles for doing birds and fish.

And this is the secret ingredient for gnocchi, which Yoonhi loves beyond all else. A German potato dumpling mix, we can stock up on this in the Vancouver specialty stores.

Pickled garlic. You always need this.

I think there’s a body in there….

nope, Korean stuff. Toraji and kosari (bracken fern) from Vancouver. We need this for bibimbap nights.

And this is where she keeps the dried kelp for miyokguk (a seaweed soup).

There’s more stuff I’ve missed. I know I’ve got some other odd things from Laos around, like that spicey wood.

Now, this all may seem a little over the top, but I put it down to the expat lifestyle. You get in the habit overseas of never taking things for granted. What’s on the shelves this week may never be seen again, so you tend to stock up, to horde like dwarves in their caverns.

Even the indiginous stuff was more of a target of opportunity. In Egypt there were things like snow peas that we would see once, and then never again. The Egyptians have a wonderful saying (the Egyptians have a lot of wonderful sayings, actually, they’re a lot of fun) “ma fish mishmish” – “there are no tangerines”. These would be on the shelves literally for only one day of the year (but they were good when they were there).

Okay, I’m exhausted. I’m going to go back to writing about what we’re eating and have eaten.

[Peter Green]

Ktichen update – Bakin’ With Serena

I know you’ve all been waiting for this. Serena’s pound cake.

It actually doesn’t look like a disaster.

I’m shocked.

Don’t ask about the ears. Sometimes I think that Serena lives in an alternate reality that only tangentially intersects ours. When it does, there’s usually a Hello Kitty somewhere nearby.

And here’s the finished result, the lifeguards’ dietary supplement for today.

I hope they wait a half hour before going back in the pool.

[insomniac]

The Egyptians have a wonderful saying (the Egyptians have a lot of wonderful sayings, actually, they’re a lot of fun) “ma fish mishmish” – “there are no tangerines”. These would be on the shelves literally for only one day of the year (but they were good when they were there).

oh bollocks, I thought mishmish meant apricot, no wonder I had 'em rolling in the aisles in Egypt with my 'very funny Gulf accent', and yes, have to agree, Egyptians are a very amiable people....(my bro used to live in Maadi, could never pronounce that either )

great blog!

[Peter Green]

Yoonhi’s returned from grocery shopping.

This means that I’d better figure out what I’m going to cook, now that she’s actually got things here on the counter top.

I’ve gotta stop winging it.

A bunch of this will be for tomorrow. I’ll do some satay and a yam with the prawns (they didn’t have any pomelo. I really wanted to do a yam som o).

After a bit of panic, I’ve decided on a Northern dish. Gaeng hung lay. This is a dry curry, relying on the hung ley curry, which is chili, galanga, lemongrass, garlic, shallot, shrimp paste, salt, and tumeric. That and brown and palm sugar, tamarind juice, a little nampla, and ginger, garlic, and shallots all get rubbed on the meat and then let to sit for an hour or so.

It also calls for pickled garlic in the recipe, so I pulled out a couple of those evil looking black things that Yoonhi’s had sitting in the pantry. Nice and soft, they dice well. Sort of look like leeches……

I’ll throw together a sour vegetable curry as well to use up those mushrooms (although I’m tempted to do a risotto with some of them).

And, at the family’s request, we’re making more ice cream. This one will be the usual touristy mix of kaffir lime leaves, galanga, and lemon grass. Clicheed, but it tastes good. Heck, I could probably put those pickled garlics into ice cream and it’d taste good.

Now there’s an idea……

[Peter Green]

This is just way too good!

Sabaidi Gourmet Tea. We picked up a box of their pandan tea, and Yoonhi started reading the description. The usual stuff about health and quality of ingredients.

Then they get to “one of a kind teabags”.

My immediate reaction was “So, how many tea bags are in that box if each one is one of a kind?”

But when we open it up, what we get is a stitched tea bag, each sachet with its own individual little bead (polished coconut husk?) attached to the string.

And from the back label, I see I should've picked up a Sabaidi tea hanger for my bag to suspend from between dips. Which is what the bead is for. A nicely lacquered little thing with a graceful curve.

When it comes to style and going over the top, nobody does it like the Thai.

[Kouign Aman]

Good golly, those are some teabags indeed!

'Usual touristy mix of kaffir lime leaves, galangal and lemongrass' - would probably be seen quite innovative over here. Sounds good.

Bamboo worms...(pause to control the screaming gribblies) - how do they keep em straight when they fry 'em? I'd expect them to curl up in the hot fat. Or are they wormshapes extruded from some bamboo containing mixture ?

Great blog, thanks!

eta: your daughter is lovely. Why the surprise re her cake? She looked quite intent on following the recipe.

[insomniac]

And here’s the finished result, the lifeguards’ dietary supplement for today.

I hope they wait a half hour before going back in the pool.

hahahahahaha do NOT mentally scar your children or they will wait until you are in a home and scar you

Edited September 27, 2007 by insomniac (log)

[Peter Green]

Bamboo worms...(pause to control the screaming gribblies) - how do they keep em straight when they fry 'em? I'd expect them to curl up in the hot fat.  Or are they wormshapes extruded from some bamboo containing mixture ?

←

good question! No answer, other than that, yes, they are really worms. I wonder if it's the symmetry of the grub that keeps them from curling. Most of the things that curl have differential densities, or else they're cooked in a medium with a strong thermal gradient. You'd have to do these in big bundles, too (although I have this image of someone sitting there, frying the grubs one by one), so there wouldn't be a lot of heat differential.

I thought the scorpions we had in China were more cutting edge, though.

[johnnyd]

Outstanding blog, Peter. I do love the food there so it's all very illuminating. And probably the best and most detailed kitchen tour ever on a foodblog. Thank you!

[markemorse]

We have food shops in Amsterdam that aren't nearly as well-stocked as your kitchen. Incredible!

[Peter Green]

Thanks, Johnny! Thanks, Mark!

I'm going to pay for this kitchen tour, though. I can feel the daggers as Yoonhi finds that I've pulled things out and moved them around. The lecture about "we have to stop buying things when we travel" is just around the corner........

[Shelby]

Peter, I'm really enjoying all the different foods I see here.

I honestly didn't think those bamboo thingys were real bugs *THUD*

What do they taste like?

Do they live in bamboo? Are they damaging to the plant?

Could you just fly me over so I can try them

[Shelby]

Oh and one more question:

What makes the pickled garlic, black?

[Peter Green]

Peter, I'm really enjoying all the different foods I see here. 

I honestly didn't think those bamboo thingys were real bugs *THUD*

What do they taste like?

Do they live in bamboo?  Are they damaging to the plant?

Oh and one more question:

What makes the pickled garlic, black?

←

They do taste like some standard North American deep fried snack! Honest! Nachos is what comes to mind, but more flavour. You have them as a beer snack, ideally with the Ping River flowing lazily past your table and those little acts of arson the Northern Thai set adrift into the night lighting up the night sky.....

Sorry, I was drifting off again.

The worms, as far as I know, do live in the bamboo, and will burrow through, feeding on it. They probably damage it a fair bit, but this is bamboo. It's a weed. Sort of like lemon grass.

And the pickled garlic......they're produced with a blend of vinegar, soy sauce, and cloves of garlic. The soy sauce is brought to a boil, heat turned off, and the garlic is thrown in when its hot (but not at boil - you don't want to cook it, just kill anything on it), and the vinegar goes in when it's warm. Leave it open.

Outside of it looking like something that's just fed on your blood, these are really tasty. The only downside is that if you go on a binge of these it starts coming out of your pores in the middle of the night. Compare that to my friend's wife at the WGF who was smelling of cabernet when she woke up after the Gala dinner, and I think I'd go with a wife smelling of red wine.

(I'm probably going to pay for that).

[Shelby]

Peter, I'm really enjoying all the different foods I see here. 

I honestly didn't think those bamboo thingys were real bugs *THUD*

What do they taste like?

Do they live in bamboo?  Are they damaging to the plant?

Oh and one more question:

What makes the pickled garlic, black?

←

They do taste like some standard North American deep fried snack! Honest! Nachos is what comes to mind, but more flavour. You have them as a beer snack, ideally with the Ping River flowing lazily past your table and those little acts of arson the Northern Thai set adrift into the night lighting up the night sky.....

Sorry, I was drifting off again.

The worms, as far as I know, do live in the bamboo, and will burrow through, feeding on it. They probably damage it a fair bit, but this is bamboo. It's a weed. Sort of like lemon grass.

And the pickled garlic......they're produced with a blend of vinegar, soy sauce, and cloves of garlic. The soy sauce is brought to a boil, heat turned off, and the garlic is thrown in when its hot (but not at boil - you don't want to cook it, just kill anything on it), and the vinegar goes in when it's warm. Leave it open.

Outside of it looking like something that's just fed on your blood, these are really tasty. The only downside is that if you go on a binge of these it starts coming out of your pores in the middle of the night. Compare that to my friend's wife at the WGF who was smelling of cabernet when she woke up after the Gala dinner, and I think I'd go with a wife smelling of red wine.

(I'm probably going to pay for that).

←

LMAO!

Again, I love your writing style.

I'm going to have to try to make some of that pickled garlic. Here it's made like, well, pickles lol.

Guess you'd be safe from vampires.......

[Peter Green]

Hey, cool!

I just tried a google on bamboo worms (they live in the roots) and I picked up a link that I'm blocked from that suggests that they may be hallucinogenic!

www.erowid.org/animals/bamboo_worm/ 1984_britton_j-ethnopharmacology.htm

Anyone want to follow this up?

(I'm still excited about finding out that Uncle Scrooge was an MDA addict, hooked on nutmeg, and so wired he had to send Donald and the boys to the jungle to secure his supply)

[Shelby]

http://www.erowid.org/animals/bamboo_worm/...harmacology.htm

If one is to believe these Indians and the Portugese themselves it is not only

for this use that the former preserve the bicho de tacuara . When strong emotion makes

them sleepless, they swallow, they say, one of these worms dried, without the head

but with the intestinal tube; and then they fall into a kind of ecstatic sleep, which often

lasts more than a day, and similar to that experienced by the Orientals when they take

opium in excess. They tell, on awakening, of marvellous dreams; they saw splendid

forests, they ate delicious fruits, they killed without difficulty the most choice game;

but these Malalis add that they take care to indulge only rarely in this debilitating

kind of pleasure.

________________________________

NOW we know why Peter likes these