How To Make Awful Edible Fleshworms

To make Roasted Awful Edible Fleshworms you'll need a few things. I have two methods of making them - one involves ham and slightly easier cooking, the other requires bacon and more work to prepare. They give similar results but I think the bacon one has a slight edge in looks and flavor.

Both methods require the same basic preparation and handling. A strip of pork tenderloin is wrapped in Prosciutto Ham (just the stuff from the deli counter at the supermarket - no need to get all food-snobbish here) and baked, or a strip of tenderloin is wrapped in strip-style Bacon, then frozen (more on why later), then roasted. 
 

Both are finished off with some high-heat broiling to give the desired amount of "charred/crusty" look to the worm. Then the mouth is cut out and the teeth are inserted. Then the worm is given any final presentation touches that may be necessary.

Method 1 - Using Prosciutto Ham

You will need:

• Strip of Pork Tenderloin (This is a boneless strip of meat whose worm-like shape will be useful.)
• About 75g - 100g of sliced Prosciutto, depending on the size of your worm. Normal sandwich-slice thickness will be fine - about 1.5mm - 2mm thick.
• 1 stick of uncooked spaghetti.
• Small, sharp knife.

The Prosciutto is on the left, the Pork Tenderloin on the right. The Prosciutto will be the "skin" and the tenderloin will be the "body" of the worm-to-be.

Step 1 - Wrap the Tenderloin with the Prosciutto

Start at the "head" end of what will be the worm, and wrap the strips of ham at a slight angle so they overlap as they wind their way down the tenderloin. Make sure they overlap, and as you get to the end of one strip add another one before you get to the end, so the end of one strip overlaps the beginning of the next by at least a good inch. Handling the worm will shift the ham a little, and the ham is a little fragile. Also, in cooking the ham will shrink somewhat - the last thing you want is for the "skin" not to cover all the tenderloin, so if in doubt wrap and overlap more, rather than less.

Be sure to wrap a little over and past the ends.

Step 2 - Cooking

Place the worm into a roasting pan and stick it into the oven - which has been pre-heated to 350 degrees. (If you forgot to pre-heat the oven, do that now while the worm waits in the fridge).

I cooked my worm for about 25 minutes, after which the tenderloin is well done, and the whole worm had pleasantly "roasted" look to the outside.

However, to give it one final finishing touch, I cranked on the top broiler of the oven at full power and watched carefully as the exterior of the worm got crisped-up a little more.

I did this until it looked right to me - it should not be more than a few minutes at most. Watch constantly when you broil in this way because the difference between "done" and "burned" can be only a few seconds.

Step 3 - Adding the Mouth and Teeth

To make the mouth, use a sharp knife with a small blade. You need to cut out a semi-circle from the "head" of the worm - use the bigger end of the tenderloin as the head-end. You may wish to get a little experimental and creative with the shape of the mouth as well but this gave just the right look I wanted.

Now is a good time to pick up the piece you just cut out and pop it into your mouth. It should be tasty!

Now, take the stick of uncooked spaghetti and break off small pieces (make them longer than the little scrap in the picture - they need to be long enough to stick in and stay!) Stick the small pieces into the mouth as teeth. Do the upper and lower jaws. I found that evenly-spaced teeth of even lengths gave the effect I was looking for.

Only about 1/3 of each tooth is visible; the other 2/3 is pushed into the meat of the jaw to hold it in.

OK! That's shaped up pretty nicely! We have something that looks like a vicious little roasted-up Fleshworm! Now the remaining step is to do any final preparation work for whatever your presentation is going to be.

Step 4 - Final Preparations

Before we can serve the Fleshworm, we need to remove the guts.

Slice open the abdomen and allow the innards to squeeze out. This will serve as a sauce. You may wish to turn on a fan if you're new to this, as I understand that the smell is really quite astonishing.

It's all about the presentation. For example, those "entrails" in the last picture are actually just a little bit of leftover chili. Some spaghetti sauce could work too. Of course, it doesn't look like chili -- it just looks repulsive.

That's the kind of thing you're looking to do in the presentation. Here is an idea for a simple, single-dish presentation. Get creative! Those little hors-d'oevre skewers or vicious-looking little fondue forks can really come in handy.

Now that's starting to look like something you'd find on the dinner table when visiting a house of horrors.