Have You Ever Eaten Cajun Spyders? It’s Not What You Think

Here in Louisiana, we tend to see an animal and instinctively want to start cooking rice and making a recipe on how to eat it. We start thinking if a red, brown, or white gravy would be the best route to take for said animal. I remember when the Apple Snails, the ones trying to kill crawfish, first came out. There were so many warnings from Wildlife and Fisheries saying for people to NOT eat them because they have some bad stuff inside of them. Where else in the world do you have to WARN people NOT to eat a random animal found in the wild. I know there was some cajun out there thinking, "Nah, we can just add them to the pot! Problem solved".

After a few years hanging out down in Hackberry, America, I decided to get my dual citizenship for the area by eating all of the random and strange things they do from time to time. One of those things, Spyders. Now, they're not the creepy-crawly things that hang out with a little pig. These are actually fried shrimp heads. What is more cajun than trying to eat every animal from the rooter to the pooter, right?

You take the shrimp head after you've peeled it, pop the eyes off and build a batter. The batter can vary, but you can use the same batter as you used to fry said shrimp earlier. Batter them up, drop them in the grease, and get to cooking. Wait for them to be a golden brown, and you have yourself a spyder!

How does it taste? Well, once you wrap your head around the fact that you're about to eat a shrimp head, they're really amazing. If Zapp's made a shrimp flavored shrimp chip, this is what it would be. I'd say the weirdest thing is that sometimes the little legs get stuck in between your teeth. I suggest next time you fry up some shrimp, go ahead and give it a shot!