Amusing food discoveries

The other day, walking around Happy Mountain, the Delightful Miss E and I had our Autumn tranquility shattered by one of these bastards : the suzumebachi, "sparrow bee", or in English, hornet. This picture doesn't do justice to the size of the thing - it was huge. When we returned home (thankfully unscathed), the Delightful Miss E immediately googled this creature, and discovered many horrid things about it. Particularly, about 70 people a year die from its sting (apparently the poison is nasty, but I think it is because the sting is bigger than a small sword); the hornet lives by eating bees, which it does not by stinging them and digesting them but just by ripping them apart with its jaws; one hornet can kill thousands of bees; and it is not vulnerable to bee poison. When it has rampaged through the nest slaughtering the bees, it eats their honey and then takes their larvae back to its nest to feed its young.

What a bastard.

The bees do have a typically beeish response to hornets. When the scout hornet approaches a beehive, the bees smell its pheromones as it approaches and a gang of several hundred hold open the hive entry. When the hornet enters, a "bee ball" of several hundred bees swarm it but, instead of stinging it, they vibrate very fast and raise the bee ball temperature to 47 degrees C. This kills the hornet.

What bastards.

Anyway, these amusing facts (some of which can be viewed in real time online) are all irrelevant to the story, which is that Wikipedia claims some Japanese people in the Mountains eat hornet larvae raw, like sushi. I didn't believe this, mainly on occupational health and safety grounds (who's going to try and catch one of them - I bet even their babies are bastards), but also because they're gross. But we asked Sir T when we went to the sushi bar (it seemed appropriate) and he said that yes, some Japanese people do. Or rather, more did. Old people in the mountains still do. How they manage this is beyond me, but it does suggest two important lessons:

1. Wikipedia knows all
2. Don't argue with old Japanese Mountainfolk, they eat wasps for breakfast.