Eating Insects
In case anyone missed it, Jeremy posted a link to a great NY Times article about eating insects in his comment about “Rodents as Food.”
If anyone in Pittsburgh wants to try a cricket, stop in at Reyna Foods, 21st and Penn in the Strip, where crickets come in a variety of flavors. I tried a sour cream and onion flavored cricket last weekend. Truth be told, it was so dusted with the sour cream and onion flavor that I’m not sure the cricket part provided anything but crunch, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless, though after reading the NY Times article, I wonder about insects as cuisine. The description of water bug meat having “the consistency of crab” and a price tag of “hundreds of dollars a pound” is intriguing, as is the information about the size of the farms insects are raised in.
Combine the sustainability of insect farming with the ability to raise guinea pigs and other small rodents in your own home, combined with the relative inefficiency of raising larger livestock such as beefs and porks, and I wonder if there’s a new cuisine on the horizon of urban-bred insects and rodents as a way to enjoy meat in an ultra-local, ecologically sustainable manner.
True, there’s a huge gross-out factor that needs to be overcome, but as the realities of climate change kick into play over the next few decades, we’ll be forced to reconsider how we grow and ship our food around the world. There’s no telling how we’ll respond as a people when necessity forces us to rethink the wisdom of factory farming.
On the other hand, it’s tough to imagine your average “I want my chicken boneless and skinless so I don’t have to think about the fact that it was once alive” eater to tolerate a plate full of locusts, legs and wings still attached. Still, i think I’d prefer that to a future of meat-flavored textured vegetable protein and cheese-flavored yeast extract.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I’ve been hanging out with some etymologists and we enjoyed grasshopper tacos recently! photos of the event are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/karinajean/sets/72157602275634829/
February 13th, 2008 at 6:33 am
In the book ” The Post Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook,” by Albert Bates, there is a recipe on page 7 for Grasshopper Quesadillas.
Me personally, I think “Grasshopper Gucamole” sounds like a hit as long as I can find avacodos in the post-petroleum age. I guess I could always use tomatillos as a base for these insects as well.
Yummy.
February 13th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
While visiting in China last year, I was asked to try boiled cicadas….which were lightly seasoned and very tasty. The only problem I see with adding those to the diet is the climbing of the large trees to harvest them. I am not as good a tree climber as I once was…but would gladly pay someone to do the picking. :o)
February 14th, 2008 at 12:43 am
I once eaten grasshoppers , and im sure i wont do it again :D.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Just curious—was it taste, texture, or just the strangeness of eating an insect that led you to decide not to eat insects again?