It took me a very long time to come round to the idea of eating insects - I already enjoy quite a varied and somewhat adventurous diet, but for some reason, I had a complete mental block on the notion of (knowingly) consuming insects.
I guess it was just cultural inertia - hardly anybody else here in England ever eats insects, so from the point of view of my background, they were always just crawly disgusting, dirty vermin.
But I went to a friend’s house on New Year’s Eve last year - he’s been egging me on to try eating insects for a while - and he had bought me a little packet of green curry crickets and another little packet of BBQ mealworms - with the obvious expectation that we would be eating them that evening. “There will be beer, right?” was my first response.
Anyway, we did eat them - and they were not at all unpleasant - mildly savoury, but all a bit dry and crispy (because these were packaged to be shelf stable).
Now it’s July and in the long grass, the song of crickets and grasshoppers is everywhere - I told my son that if he helped me catch some grasshoppers, I’d cook and eat them.
So that’s what we did - it took ages to chase down and capture a dozen little grasshoppers (next time: a net), which I took home, killed by putting the container in the freezer for a couple of minutes, then fried.
I was surprised to see that they quickly turned from green to golden red when cooked - not unlike shrimps (this made the idea of eating them more appetising).
And they were actually really good to eat - softly crispy, but slightly chewy(in a good way) - a bit like eating little slivers of crispy chicken skin. Nice flavour - mild, but rich and nutty/buttery - absolutely nothing to dislike.
I’m definitely doing this again - it’s potentially more productive (per unit effort) than shrimping or any other animal protein foraging activity I can think of.
I know! I know they taste good but…I swear I can’t get around the mental block. How much of a creep factor did you have about bugs to begin with? I mean, I have trouble simply handling them.
When I think about it, I always ask myself if eating king prawns is really that different from eating grasshoppers - both being equally creepy crunchy creatures. But I can’t get my head around it either. I would definitely eat the grasshopper meat if someone “peeled” the shells off and compressed it into a “fillet” of something like that.
I’ve had little grasshoppers in a taco like they do in southern Mexico. Not so good, but mostly because they’d been brined. I was also expecting big, meaty locusts.
The idea appeals to me. One does have to be cautious of parasites though.
Ok…but are they considered meat?? I asked about it over on the “It’s meat. Get over it.” thread, but no answer. I would think that something like a Madagascar hissing cockroach would have a fair amount of flesh. If you’re Catholic can you eat one on Friday? If you are the ever popular “fish eating vegetarian” would you also eat insects? I also wonder if certain insects are only in season at certain times for purposes of hunting.
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Yes. Only warm blooded animals are considered forbidden for Catholics observing the Friday dietary restrictions (usually only during Lent these days.) So you can have your bugs, your turtle, your frog legs, what have you.
I’m an insect-eating vegetarian, so there’s at least one around
I’ll very very occasionally eat fish, but I don’t think I have in the last year- I’ll only eat it if I’m convinced it’s sustainable. Rarely an issue with insects.
Lake Victoria Midge Swarm Burgers - second part of the video, starting at about 10:00 minutes in. The villagers collect millions (billions?) of midges, and make them into coal-black, protein-rich burger patties.
I don’t really like handling most insects/spiders - I’ll grab a housefly to throw it out of the window (actually, I feed them to my gerbils), but big house spiders are usually a glass and postcard job for me - not so much because I’m scared of them, just because they’re fast and squirmy.
I’ve caught and eaten quite a variety of crustaceans, and have eaten many more varieties in a restaurant setting, but although intellectually, it’s easy to say that there’s no logical difference between eating a cricket and eating a shrimp, in a culture where it’s not normal, putting that intellectual logic into practice is quite a different matter.
It’s definitely easier after the first time. I purposely used alcohol both to lubricate my inhibitions, and on standby to wash down my first insect if it turned out to be nasty.
My biggest fear was that the outside would be tough like a bit of popcorn shell and the inside would be semi-liquid and squirty. At least in the case of fried mealworms and grasshoppers, neither fear was realised - they’re gently crispy with a slight meaty-protein chewy-ness to them - as I say, crispy chicken or duck skin is the nearest analogue I can think of - or maybe the crispy edge of a thin pancake.
Now I’ve broken the barrier, I’m really looking forward to including more insects in my diet - in fact I went out at dusk this evening and caught a load more grasshoppers (they’re in the freezer now). I’m not really keen to try some things - for example, I saw Bear Grylls eat a live longhorn beetle - and it didn’t look like that was in any way pleasant.
Not yet. Land based arthropods of any description are simply not part of my cultural background - and I never really did the gap year world tour thing, so I’ve not actually been to many places where bugs are eaten.
There’s already a wealth of information available on the subject - but crickets/locusts/grasshoppers are very well known as being edible.
I know of some species of crabs (not local to me) that are inedible due to lack of substance or poor flavour - I’m not sure there are any that would actually be dangerous to eat. Unless I discover a new species though, someone else will already have answered the question.
Most insects that are not edible will be unpleasant in greater measure than they are actually poisonous - that is, bitter or foul tasting - and in very many cases, they advertise the fact by being brightly coloured and patterned - the ones trying to camouflage themselves, on the other hand, are often doing so because they’re delicious.
In a way, yes - foraging is one of my interests - and I document it all on my website, so it was more or less inevitable that I would progress from nuts and berries to insects as wild food eventually, just to avoid repetition.
Grasshoppers will probably become a regular item for me though, in the same way as blackberries already are - because they’re good eating.
