If you cook a bug/spider/worm what goes on with it’s insidey parts?
Does the exoskeleton rupture somewhere are the guts sort of ooze out and you’re left with the shell? Provided there is no rupture in the exoskeleton, and the guts stay inside, does the viscosity change at all?
Do the insides stay the same as when they were living? Or do they become firm like with a cooked crustacean?
Does the cooking method determine the consistency of the exoskeleton and its insides? Like, frying, broiling, braising, boiling?
If you want to cook a grasshopper, you pull the head off gently, and the stomach and guts come out with it. You can then thread it into something and roast a grasshopper kebab. You don’t want to eat it raw because of yucky germs (salmonella or e. coli, IIRC).
I learned this from Les Stroud.
ETA- Oh, and you just pop it in your mouth and eat it whole- mmmmmmm, crunchy…
I’ve cooked mealworms, cockroaches, stickbugs and crickets. I was actually baking them to dehydrate them to be used in a bus stop sign for Science World.
Externaly they didn’t really change except for browning. I don’t know about internal texture. The worst part was having the boss walk in and swipe a handful of mealwormsoff the tray and down 'em. He says they’re pretty good.
I think there’s a misconception here. Bugs aren’t filled only with “goop” that hardens when you cook it, like an egg white. Insects are filled with muscle, and it’s mainly the muscle tissue you want to eat. Lobster are prized because of their heavily muscled tails (used for scooting backwards) and claws (heavily muscled for obvious reasons). Shrimp, crawdads, and crabs are muscled, as well.
Well, the desirable insects *(and relatives) are the larger, heavily muscled ones – grashoppers or lucusts, beetles, spiders. Sure, there’s goop in there, but you’ve got plenty of goop in you (as do the cows, chickens, and pigs you eat) – blood, lymph, mucous.
But when it’s cooked does it become flaky like crustacean meat?
You step on a bug, there’s usually clearish liquid and thicker gunk (I’m guessing the muscles). When they’re cooked, does it stay that consistency or does it thicken and harden and maybe even become striated like crabmeat?
I think the reason there’s so much liquid when you squish an insect is that they don’t have such complex circulatory systems as we do - our blood is contained in a network of vessels - in insects, it’s a lot simpler and more open - meaning that their blood (actually called hemolymph) can all come out at once, a lot more easily.
Here is the book you want Sadly, I never experienced the bug eating parties when I was a Cyclone myself. It looks like they’ve taken down the recipe site. It was here.
