Botud

What is Botud? Have you ever heard of it before? Botud is a worm commonly found in a rotten rumbia trunk.This worm is edible, they say so but I never give it a try. This worm depend on the soft rumbia trunk ( inside ) for food. It never eat other than the ripau ( rumbia trunk/flesh ). How do people eat this worm? They never cook it, they said it would tasteless. I remember my elder brother wrapped the worms with a big leaf than crunch them, yum.

In Sabah, my friend told me that there is a restaurant cum resort serves botud in its premise. I hope someday I would be able to have one botud as my dessert, once in a life time. This worm rich with protein, it is a fact. You need to take the head off before consume the worm. They said it taste like ..... whatever, since I never try it- I won't be able to describe it's taste.

When the rumbia trunk rotten, botud and the most delicious mushroom would appear. I would say no to botud and yes to the mushroom. This mushroom locally known as kulat ripau. Today, this mushroom might be difficult to be found as the rumbia tree can be listed as almost extinct. I hope there is effort to conserve and replant this tree. The future generation will see this tree in museaum, textbook and photographs taken by lucky previous generation.