I was reading through xiaxue blog today and found this interesting entry about cordyceps. Incase you have no idea what it is, its chinese name is 冬虫夏草 full english name, Cordyceps Sinensis. I have also wonder alot of times, when i was a kid, is it really worm soup we are drinking? You know as Chinese, most of us should have drank it before, mum or ah ma sure will cook some of these medical soup.
Sometimes you will see the thing inside the soup and goes, OMG, its really a worm, then my mum told me, no la, it just looks like a worm, but its a root of some plant, thats y people name it 冬虫夏草. She goes on saying, you know like Chinese people always name things according to the looks of the item, dont need to worry la, your mum look like she will drink worm soup meh. Haha so cute mum right.
I really trust her with my heart man, and never question it again, after all it doesnt taste that bad. But i just read xiaxue blog, and she show this photo of the worm itself.
I had then this feeling same as her that we are actually drinking the corpse of the dead worm. I did some research and found out that ya, in some ways it is true.
Cordyceps Sinensis is actually a fungi that grows on the caterpillar of Tibetan moth, it is a parasite that will feed and grow on the host itself. Therefore the name of 冬虫夏草, literally means Winter worm, Summer Grass. As the caterpillar itself grows in the winter as a larvae but in the summer it will get attack by the fungi pores and grows to become a mushroom by the parasite.
To some extent we are really eating on the dead worm, but i guess the root grows to the shape of the worm because it is actually inside the worm itself. But i dont think the corpse will be there for so many months without decaying, therefore logically it is actually the root we are cooking, which grows to the shape of the previous dead host.
Despite the ugly and disgusting look and grow of the fungi, the medical effect seems really good. Which includes improves the liver, kidney, heart and immune system function of the human body, and also act as an anti-oxidant in the body protecting it from free radical damage.
It is also well known to as a powerful aphrodisiac, a traditional medicine to help men suffering from impotence.
Interesting stories about this medicine, there are a lot evil business man in the mainland will try to mixed real caterpillars baked and lookalike the fungi to mixed it with the bunch of the medicines to sell for profit. Ewwwww thats really disgusting, i dont know why these people even given the chance to live in this world.
And the Western business man did it another way, they sorta came out with a way to cultivate these fungi without using the worm as the host. By using soya bean and creating a special environment for the fungi to grow on the bean itself sprout the same fungi. However the Chinese doctors then debate that, the special medicine potency of the cordyceps can only be extracted from those growth through the natural process.
As there are some unknown substance, nutrients grew out from the wild ones than the ones in the labs. It is still debatable till now. But those found in the capsules are mostly grow using the western ways, up to your own preference, but i am so sure my mum will rather cook the wormalike roots than taking a pill, hahaha.
And by the way, there are alot of species of cordyceps and only the cordyceps sinensis are recognized as medicine. And if you think the species we ate is very disgusting, think twice, read below!
If you find this very disgusting, i am here to let you know, actually caterpillar is not that bad. Look at the following pictures.
Poor moth gets the same treatment.
This looks like a spider who gets the fungi attack.