Fruit Bat Soup



Fruit Bat soup is considered a delicacy in Palau, and some tourists even venture tasting this disgusting dish while visiting. Now, the obvious question is "what's so gross about that, isn't it just some fruit bat meat chopped and boiled into a soup?" No, actually; they dump a live, whole fruit bat into a pot of boiling milk and serve it up as soup. We don't even want to start thinking about dealing with the fur and other innards, not to mention what's still inside those innards. Even if we could somehow get over it which isn't likely it just seems like a lot of work for such little reward. That's of course forgetting about the fact that there's a whole bat in your bowl of soup.

3 Fruit bats, well washed but neither skinned nor eviscerated,
Water
1 tb Finely sliced fresh ginger,
1 lg Onion, quartered,

I knew if we were patient, this would become available. For all of you who have been waiting patiently to make your fruit bats into fruit bat soup, here's a recipe.

The following is a genuine recipe from Micronesia. Fruit bats, or flying foxes, are furry, fruit and nectar eating bats about the size of small rabbits.

Sea salt to taste, Chopped scallions, Soy sauce and/or coconut cream.

1. Place the bats in a large kettle and add water to cover, the ginger, onion, and salt. Bring to the boil and cook for 40 minutes. Strain broth into a second kettle.

2. Take the bats, skin them and discard the skin. Remove meat from the bones and return meat, and any of the viscera you fancy, to the broth. Heat.

3. Serve liberally sprinkled with scallions and further seasoned with soy sauce and/or coconut cream.

Yield: 4 servings.