We just cleared out the pantry up at the old digs after 3 months away, after noticing a few of those eeensy flour beetles hanging around the cereals. (They’re the ±2 mm long, dull brown ovoids that creep slowly with no legs visible.)
Anyway, Beetle HQ turned out to be a cardboard canister of Italian bread crumbs - the super-salty, oregano-y, seasoned kind. Why congregate in the bread crumbs though? Do they like certain tastes, substances, etc., in their cereal grains?
Goddamnit. Now I’m paranoid about the 20lbs of open flour in a cabinet, and my 50 lbs sack of rice. Great. Just great.
Is that true that such varmints are attracted exclusively by lipids? Since it’s GQ, can I get a cite? I’d like to know more about such infective infesters, and don’t know where to start.
Exclusively? No. I imagine there are different kind of weevils, but I have definitely had them in flour before. But those would be the lesser of two weevils.
I’ve had them invite themselves into masa (corn flour). They seem to generally inhabit the dry goods, so I’ve always kept mine in sealed canasters or wrapped up tightly in another bag.
Years ago, I worked in a supermarket and sometimes we would get a shipment of flour or cornmeal in that would have been torn open in shipping. That would cause an immediate, heavy-duty clean up. It was a real pain to keep that back room clean so we would not attact those bugs and have customers or the OSHA inspectors find them. We referred to them as “walking protein.”
I keep my 20 lb bags of flour in a sealed huge Tupperware container, or (years ago) in a giant potato chip can, and never got weevils. Is your 20lb sack just sitting open?
If you’re talking to me, then yep – just a semi-empty 20# bag of AP flour. I know, you can buy good containers from King Arthur and such, but I’m a bachelor and really lazy. Besides, I’ll be done with that paltry amount soon. It’s more the thought that weevils are infesting my kitchen and multiplying quicker than I can eat them that taints my mind.
In my defense, Whole-grain goes in the freezer, and corn-meal and rye I get in small bags that are used up quickly. I’m not a total loser!