Keep It Down: Worst Food Ever

Reading Malcolm Gay's column about canned silkworm pupae this week, I had to grimace: When people ask me what the worst thing I've ever eaten was, that's always at the top of my list.

I tried silkworm pupae at a little Korean restaurant in Oakland that specialized in fruity soju cocktails and plates of fresh pork belly and intestines to grill at the table. I was there with a few friends, one of whom was Korean, and when we asked her to translate the Korean-only menu items it took her a while to get this one right. "It's a kids' snack in Korea," she explained. "Butterflies? No. Caterpillars? No." After 20 questions we got the picture, and everyone pretended to be nonchalant and gung-ho about trying some (the soju cocktails turned out to be a little more powerful than we had anticipated).

The pupae arrived in a hot stone bowl, and each of us plucked out one grey, rubbery pod. It tasted like mud and decaying mushrooms, and required a heavy swig of soju to chase down, then another shot to sweep away the shivers of nausea. In fact, the bowl smelled so strong that we had to put a plate over it.

But before our waitress slipped the bowl off the table, Yumi kept lifting up the lid to pluck out pods, which she'd chew meditatively. "It reminds me of childhood," she finally announced.

I have the same feeling about frozen Twinkies.