A weaver ant nest in Phu Yen Province provides eggs for a bowl of sour soup

Central residents eat a sour soup made with ants’ eggs to cool off on hot days.

Weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) usually make their homes high up in tall trees with broad green leaves. They secrete a glue-like substance and use it to fix together green leaves into roundish nests. Weaver ants that live on shrubs and bushes build nests the size of an adult’s fist. But the larger colonies only make their home in large trees, often fruit trees, and the nests are much larger.

Egg hunters only take eggs from nests with dry yellow leaves, as the eggs in the green nests are often too young. The eggs in the yellow nests are large and best for eating.

When hunters break a nest with a bamboo pole, the eggs drop into a basket fixed to its tip. But builder ants may attack to protect the eggs and the queen. To scare the builder ants away, hunters scatter some ash around the eggs. They also kill many of the ants with “torches” of burning straw. These dead ants are also used for flavor in the sour soup.

To make the weaver ant egg soup, cooks wash the whitish eggs in water to remove the ash and dry leaves. They boil them and the dead ants in a pot of water, adding various smashed sour leaves, salt and sugar.

The soup is ready to serve relatively quickly. Locals often eat the soup to cool off on hot days.

Reported by Manh Minh Tam