We citizens of Europe and North America gladly indulge in the eating of all kinds of foods considered taboo in many other parts of the world. While for us Lobster is a gourmet dish, in other countries it is understandably avoided as a dirty garbage eating creature not meant for consumption. Pork chops are eaten regularly in our culture when in others it is forbidden as being dangerous and regarded (correctly) as extremely unhealthy. What we have fail to notice, besides the fact that pork is a really bad thing to eat, is that Europeans and Americans are missing out on one of the longest and most sensible food traditions of the world: Entomophagy, the eating of bugs.
According to National Geographics, humans have been eating bugs since we first came to be. It is believed we learned it from watching animals. Even after civilization developed bugs remained a regular part of everyone’s diet. Aristotle, when not crafting esoteric lecture notes for future generations to puzzle over, wrote advice on how and when to collect cicadas for eating. According to him it was best to get them right after they reached the nymph phase, when the males are the tastiest (after mating, the females are more desirable as they are then filled with eggs). The Bible describes all sorts of bug-eating situations, the most famous being the story of John the Baptist and his steady diet of locust and honey. Even in the new world bugs were a staple food. The Paiute Indians hunted and burned Mormon Crickets by the thousands in order to pound them into flour for bread according to www.nationalgeographics.com.
In the western world these days, eating bugs has become taboo, but we’re the minority in this regard. Over 50% of the population of the planet still regularly cooks and enjoys such dishes as termites in cornmeal, ant egg burritos, dragon flies simmered in coconut milk, and fly larvae in sweet soy sauce. And slowly but surely, this tradition is seeping into the United States.
Experts like Manfred Kroger suspect that bug eating became unpopular in the west when agriculture began. As insects ate the crops, farmers began seeing them as pests that needed to be killed rather than as a plentiful food source. When Europeans arrived in the new world, they brought their bug prejudices with them and eating bugs is now seen as disgusting and dirty in our culture. However, bugs are not actually any dirtier than many other foods we eat already including crab, shrimp and lobster and the benefits of eating bugs are incredible. In fact, using bugs as a protein source is not only better for us, it is far better for the environment than raising livestock, a practice responsible for about 18% of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to the article Eating Bugs at www.time.com, bug ranching requires less water than raising cattle, pork, or poultry. Bugs are cold-blooded so they waste no energy in keeping their temperatures up, unlike our current warm-blooded sources of protein. Water bugs contain four times as much iron as beef. Bugs offer slightly more protein per pound than livestock and a LOT less fat. Plus, unlike pork, the fat insects do have is much healthier and easier to digest. These facts have not escaped the notice of the United Nations which recently held a convention on Entomophagy.
Before you chuck that hamburger you’re eating out the window, dash outside and start stuffing live cockroaches and earthworms into your mouth, let me tell you that most websites recommend both washing and cooking your bugs before you ingest them, and discourage collecting them from the street. Not only do we have a tendency to dump poison an anything that crawls on six legs, but many bugs have parasites. It’s best to either raise bugs yourself, or buy them from a reliable market. For advice about bug vendors I suggest you visit this awesome website created especially for bug-eaters of the San Francisco Bay Area! www.planetscott.com/babes.
And just because I want to help you all get started on your crunchy journey into a new world of flavors, I’ve crafted a complete dinner menu for you to try some night when you’re feeling adventurous:
Appetizer:
Garlic Butter Fried Grasshoppers
1/4 cup butter
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup cleaned insects (wings and legs removed)
Melt butter in fry pan. Reduce heat. Sauté garlic in butter for 5 minutes. Add insects. Continue sautéing for 10 – 15
minutes, stirring occasionally. From Orkin
(http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~cbader/ghprecwithinsects.htmlAppetizer)
Main Course:
Ant Brood TacosBroodAnt Brood Tacos
- 2 tablespoons butter or peanut oil
- 1/2 pound ant larvae and pupae
- 3 serrano chilies, raw, finely chopped
- 1 tomato, finely chopped
- Pepper, to taste
- Cumin, to taste
- Oregano, to taste
- 1 handful cilantro, chopped
- Taco shells, to serve
Heat the butter or oil in a frying pan and fry the larvae or pupae. Add the chopped onions, chilies, and tomato, and season with salt. Sprinkle with ground pepper, cumin, and oregano, to taste. Serve in tacos and garnish with cilantro. (Not living in an area exceptionally prolific with ants, I have never been able to try this recipe. But it sounds perfectly delicious! I found it in ‘Creepy Crawly Cuisine’, an excellent recipe book.)
(http://eatbug.com/recipes.htm)
Dessert:
Chocolate Mealworm Chip Cookies
2 1/4 c Flour
1 ts Vanilla
1 ts Baking Soda
2 Eggs
1 ts Salt
1 Bag Chocolate chips
1 c Butter; softened
1 c Chopped Walnuts; (optional)
3/4 c Sugar
1/2 c Dry-roasted mealworms
3/4 c Brown Sugar
To prepare dry-roasted mealworms, first drop them in boiling water for one minute. Next, drain them on a paper towel. Finally, bake mealworms at 200 degrees for one to two hours, depending on the size. When cooked, mealworms can easily be crushed with a spoon. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, combine butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. Beat until creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually add flour mixture and insects, mixing well. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (optional). Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for eight to ten minutes. Recipe Source: Home & Garden TV — Home Grown Cooking – Episode 139 Formatted for MasterCook by Nancy Berry – cwbj78a@prodigy.com Converted by MM_Buster v2.0l.
(http://www.bigoven.com/147429-Chocolate-Mealworm-Chip-Cookies-recipe.html)
For those of you freaking out and making gagging noises, let me remind you that although we don’t intentionally eat bugs, we actually eat a lot of them. And no, I’m not talking about the spiders you supposedly eat in your sleep. The FDA laws are not so strict that bugs and bug parts don’t still make their way into our food in startlingly large numbers. We eat insect waste, eggs and fragments, mites, larvae, worms, aphids and many others regularly. We eat them in canned corn, frozen and fresh vegetables and fruits, wheat flour, hops, herbs, peanut butter, and chocolate just to name a few. So maybe it’s time we all stop living in denial, except the inevitable, and enjoy the six-legged bounty of the earth! Gnat burger anyone? Caterpillar pie?