North Korea is known for a lot of things, like human rights abuses, totalitarianism, and prison camps to name a few. But one thing North Korea certainly isn’t known for is its cooking. That is until a Japanese tourist managed to smuggle back some photographs and a recipe for a very North Korean-style clam bake.
A few years ago, Japanese travel writer Kuzo paid a visit to North Korea and had the chance to try a local delicacy: gasoline baked clams.
Yep, you read that right. To cook clams, they place them in a gravel pit, douse them with gasoline, and light them up.
Over the course of the next five minutes, two regular-sized water bottles of gasoline are dumped on the clams to keep the flames burning. Once the flames die out, dinner’s ready!
Traditionally, this is a summer dish in North Korea as it must be done outdoors for obvious reasons.
According to Kuzo, the clams were extremely tasty. They were actually some of the best he’d ever eaten, if you can believe that.
Of course, there is always the risk that you’ll get a bad clam. To combat this, North Koreans traditionally drink soju, a distilled rice liquor, with their meals.
If baby clams are found on North Korean dinner plates, it’s seen as a sign of good luck!
(via Rocket News)
As someone who’s allergic to shellfish, I’ll never experience the delight of eating clams, much less clams that are cooked with gasoline, but they still do look pretty good. If I’m ever in North Korea, I might have to risk it and give these a go.
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