My mother and sister-in-law are visiting from S. Korea so we're watching a lot of DirecTV's Korean feeds. A lot. (Had to drive to and from Manhattan last night to pick them up on 32nd Ave. Playing in mid week NYC traffic is fun.)
Korean television audiences are fond of the sort of variety, slice-of-life programming that went out of vogue in the US some years ago. There are many shows featuring small town eccentrics, sassy grandmas and chatty kids, to name a few recurring types.
Of all the topics however, none is bigger than food: both growing it and cooking it. Koreans love to talk about, ogle and of course, eat food. A related sub-topic is medicinal foodstuffs, red ginseng and deer blood are good examples.
So anyway, one of these shows featured a guy living outside of Seoul whose specialty is making an old Korean tonic: hornet juice. (Also popular in Japan, I'm told).
Yes that's right Buttons, hornet juice.
How do you make hornet juice?
According to Mr. Pak (who demonstrated his hornet harvesting skills for Korean Broadcasting System cameras) you suit up in a thick rubber one peice, don a pair of serious rubber gloves (duct taped to your rubber covered wrists to prevent painful, under-suit incursions), affix an extra heavy beekeeper's mesh helmet to your head and casually walk up to a nearby hornet's nest as if you're stopping by for dinner.
Using a wire cutter, snip the nest free of its tree branch mooring and place it in a contractor class plastic trash bag. Next, calmly walk that hornet nest filled trash bag (chock-a-block with peeved hornets) into your home and toss it in the fridge, right next to those bottles of Kirin beer (the beer probably isn't a prereq but Mr. Pak's fridge was filled with beer and chilled hornet nests -- they seemed to go together somehow).
Wait a day or two and then check on the bagged and frigid nest. Everybody dead? Not yet. Up to a point (a few days) hornets can endure near freezing temps. There's still some sluggish and potentially stingy movement in there.
Back in the fridge you go.
A few days later...
Ah, the cold bagged nest has collapsed; a good sign. Now you can safely remove it and start brewing your hornet juice. Place the nest in a big jar and add water, beer, ginseng and other liveners.
Let the jar sit prominently on your very nice kitchen counter for a week or so. Your kids will love to examine the decomposing bodies of hornets and hornet larvae. Encourage your children to taunt the dead insects like Spartans taunting fallen enemies.
Is the fluid the color of spoiled milk? Does it smell like a household cleaner? Good, that means it's ready. Carefully pour the liquid through a sieve; you don't want to accidentally swallow stingers!
Observe your handiwork...hornet juice!
Now all that remains is the drinking. Ice? No thank you. I take my hornet juice like I take my women: straight and full of neurotoxins.
.d.