Ship of Fools: Would you eat insects?

Thread: Would you eat insects? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Would you eat, or have you eaten, insects?

This thread was sparked off by Wesley J on the FLP thread where he highlighted this from the UN.

"Wasps, beetles and other insects are currently 'underutilised' as food for people and livestock, the report says. Insect farming is 'one of the many ways to address food and feed security'. "

Myself I would - but they would have to be nicely disguised in burgers!

[Smile]

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Yes, and we have. There used be a restaurant nearby which specialised in native Aust foods - lemon myrtle, bush tomatoes etc, and they used offer witchedy grubs as an entree (US starter) course. Shelled and deveined like prawns, quickly fried and served with a simple sauce, they were very pleasant indeed.

[ 28. May 2013, 09:54: Message edited by: Gee D ]

Posted by lily pad (# 11456) on :

I can't see where I would eat insects. But, apparently, this is year 17 for cicadas. This guy is ready.

Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :

No - because I'm a big wimp when it comes to that sort of thing. Crunching through something identifiable would make me cringe, I've tried things like caviar and salmon eggs and the 'pop' is very off putting. This aversion is strange because I have no problem with identifiable meat, we rear our own chickens and are happy to eat any spares. And I'm fine with small whole fish like anchovies or whitebait. Perhaps it is because insects are traditionally seen as pests.

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

Would do and have done, there used to be a restaurant in Brixton that specialised in insect dishes. Locusts in honey are really quite delicious.

My great uncle survived on his rations in a Japanese POW camp by eating the maggots that he encouraged to grow in the scraps.Good job he wasn't squeamish but I'll bet starvation and enforced labour bypass the ick factor pretty quickly.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

Quite happily. If I can eat fish milts/soft roes, aka fish sperm, I can eat insects.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

We'll eat all sorts of leggity things if they come out of the sea, but not from he land. I'll eat mussels or oysters, but not snails.

Bar the odd bee bumbling among the flowers, I can't think of any situations where you encounter insects in a pleasant context. When was the last time your heart lept up when you beheld a wasp or an earwig or a fly or an ant or a cockroach?

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

Firenze, I live in the eternal hope that one day I will find a genuine money-spider...

(yeah, I know its an arachnid and not an insect)

[ 28. May 2013, 11:04: Message edited by: Bob Two-Owls ]

Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :

I ate roasted caterpillars when I was in DRC. They tasted fine but I had to keep reminding myself that there was really no difference in texture from prawns as every now and again I felt a bit weird/ iffy about it...but I managed to do it, phew, thereby not causing offence to my host!

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

I'd eat them if they were processed into a burger or mince or something, but not whole. The thought of all those legs rubbing against the inside of my mouth and throat makes me feel incredibly squeamish even sitting here at my computer.

I don't eat prawns or shrimp for the same reason.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Quite happily. If I can eat fish milts/soft roes, aka fish sperm, I can eat insects.

Eergh! I find them awful. And I've got some in my fridge that came gratis with a herring (I was hoping for hard roe.) It's something about the texture. It goes for brains, spinal chord (though they are now off the menu), similar bits of offal, and stuff out of scallops.

But not, oddly, for sweet things like blancmange and panna cotta, which have similar mouth feel - so it has to be the Yuk factor really.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

No, absolutely not. Nor do I eat seafood (apart from some fish) or anything else with many legs/suckers/tentacles/other dangly bits.

Growing up we often had winkles for Sunday tea, which I enjoyed then. We prised them out with a pin and made sandwiches. The thought of it makes me go [Projectile]

now - as does the thought of crunchy crickets or whatever...

Posted by Avila (# 15541) on :

I would lose a lot of wieght before I succumbed.

I don't do prawns or shellfish or offal, basically anything involving whole creatures or the plumbing of a larger one. Would become veggie first!

Though as mentioned above desperation can enable people to face things we never thought we could.

I remain grateful not to be desperate!!

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
When was the last time your heart lept up when you beheld a wasp or an earwig or a fly or an ant or a cockroach?

If you count beetles, then it was last Saturday.

I rather like the big black-and-yellow social wasps. They are beautiful little things.

And ants are fascinating. I got told off at school once for looking at the ants on the playing field rather than wtching the football match aI was supposed to be watching.

As for eating them, well they are mostly very small and don't have a lot of meat inside them. Quite a lot of empoty air inside those shell and what isn't is often made of crunchy bits.

But shrimps and prawnas and so on are lovely to eat so in principle, no problem.

Snails and slugs woudl be an eaiser food source in our climate. Bigger, slower, easier to catch. You could get a decent meal's worth out of a small suburban garden, no problem. Just the hassle of getting them out of the shells. (Which is why so-called "edible snails" are the big ones - they aren't any better nutritionally than normal garden snails but because they are bigger they are easier to eat)

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Bar the odd bee bumbling among the flowers, I can't think of any situations where you encounter insects in a pleasant context. When was the last time your heart lept up when you beheld a wasp or an earwig or a fly or an ant or a cockroach?

Butterflies, and dragonflies, and ladybirds. Those are just the easy ones. I'd also be pleased to see a stag beetle.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'd also be pleased to see a stag beetle.

On your plate? Even if you enjoy seeing them do their insecty thing in the wild, it's still a step to Tasty Nibble. Mind you, exoticism may help; in China I would happily eat things I would have run screaming from at home. Actually, I think you have to be there, and surrounded by other people tucking in. I'd probably still run screaming if they turned up on Sainsbury's fish counter.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Some years ago one of the local delis had a large jar of fried ants in the window. Passersby stopped and looked at this in horrified fascination, but nobody bought any and it sat there for a few weeks until a passing Colombian caught sight of it and went in to buy the whole lot, with great joy. She could hardly wait to snack on them before she got out of the shop; large fried ants are a delicacy in Colombia.

For my part I wouldn't try them, or any other insects. The agave worm that you find in the bottom of a particular brand of mescal bottle was enough to turn my stomach, though a friend of mine was sufficiently drunk to spear it with a cocktail stick and eat it. I didn't watch.

It gave a whole new meaning to saying "I could do with some grub."

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I've got no problem with offals like liver, kidneys and hearts. In fact, when we did stuffed hearts in a cookery lesson, my friend and I tried a teeny bit raw - it's not bad, but I haven't repeated it.

I don't eat any molluscs, apart from if someone offers scallops (apart from the gloopy bit). Shellfish or cephalopods. Not sure why, but mostly the Yuk factor, I think.

And my French teacher's beautiful exposition of the preparation of escargots. Which she did in French, but my brain has engaged its internal Babelfish, and I remember it in English. It was a long shaggy dog story of biscuit tins and flour, garlic and butter and finished with something like "it tastes "comme une gomme en beurre d'ail"." (Like a rubber - eraser - in garlic butter.) At which point I decided it just wasn't worth the time or the money.

I'm not at all attracted by leggy crunchy insects, but I might just be able to bring myself to eat locusts, seeing as they are so like marine arthropods, which I do eat.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I'm vegetarian so no!

There are whole lot of things that I think we should eat - in general, not personally - that we don't. Including offal, insect, sea creatures.

If I were to eat meat, then I would probably still not eat insects though. Yuk.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

I guess under duress I would eat locust, crickets or grasshoppers, since God apparently thinks I can (Lev. 11). That would leave out ants and beetles I suppose.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Apparently my answer is yes. But they more like snacks than a meal.

I have eaten wood ants, these are the big ones. Fry them to death in a tin cup, through in some butter. They are actually rather sweet, though ant legs can get stuck between your teeth.

Meal worms. Best is to put them into a container of flour. Then you know what has 'breaded' them on the inside. They are sort of like weird potato chips. They taste of the salt put on them after frying.

Finally, tarantulas, which are not insects, but in the same category of 'ew yuck' and heebeejeebees. They are sort of like mini chicken frog-leg things. We skewered them and roasted them over a fire. They can be crispied up, hair burnt off and eaten more or less whole. Crunchy to a degree.

I don't recall what fried bees tasted like, I felt sorry to have eaten one because they are the heavenliest insect as a source of both sweetness and light.

I've also eaten an iguana, by mistake, but that'd be another thread.

[ 28. May 2013, 21:04: Message edited by: no prophet ]

Posted by Spiffy (# 5267) on :

I've had meal worms and crickets. There's a bar near my comic shop that does a lovely dish of crispy fried cricket, goes great with a lager.

I am not fond of crab or lobster or crayfish, though. It's weird, I know.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

Natural red food colouring.

Need I say more? I'm sure many vegetatarians would have unwittingly eaten beetle in the form of the cake colouring cochineal.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Spiffy:
I've had meal worms and crickets. There's a bar near my comic shop that does a lovely dish of crispy fried cricket, goes great with a lager.

You know, I was about to post something similar—crispy fried crickets are delicious. There's a place downtown near the Archives that does a mean cricket taco; seasoned with chile, salt, shallot and tequila, the little things are delish. While I'm sure most people order the chapulines as a novelty the first time, I'm equally sure that they get it again because it's dang good. Now, granted, some of this is the skill of the kitchen (they also do great things with corn smut, which isn't that surprising—after all, what is smut but honey fungus or wood ear mushroom growing on a different plant?), but the crickets are there for more than just food bets.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

I'm sure we've all eaten lots of insects in our lifetimes. Many of them are tiny and just get into things.

The one time I distinctly remember eating identifiable insects was when I put down an open can of Coke beside me at a pool. After swimming, I grabbed the can, took a swig, and wondered for a moment what those little bursts of sour taste were. The ants had found my Coke. [Frown]

Posted by Yangtze (# 4965) on :

I've eaten scorpions.

Though I could only face the deep fried ones, not the ones that had been semi-drowned in warm alcohol and were still sleepily moving.

The trick was to hold them so the sting was on one side of the chopsticks (yes, this was in China, of course) and the body on the other. Then you could bite off the body and the sting would remain held in the chopsticks and could be dropped on the table.

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

Daughter-Unit earned an 'A' for eating a fried roach in front of her class. She was the only one to do so. IIRC.

I found half a roach in the hot chocolate I drank in a cafe, once. Yucky. I didn't yell or throw the drink so as not to frighten the other patrons. I quietly went to tell the manager, who didn't care, then I proceeded to say (loudly), "You don't care that there was half a bug in my cocoa?" I wasn't the only one who left, then.

So, no. No bugs for me. Well, except for shrimp! My family call them 'bugs'!

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

Never eaten insects. Someone brought insects in hard candy to work, but I wasn't tempted. Like Boogie, insects as a source of protein to make something would be OK (as long as it tasted nice), but I can't bring myself to eat things that look like bugs, and I can't bring myself to be attracted to the idea of crunchy exoskeleton.

Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on :

Good thread, Boogie!

I've actually just remembered a BBC TV documentary I saw a few weeks back. They were running an insect theme, with different types of films.

One of the films was "Can eating insects save the world" - google this with "BBC": the 60-min programme may be on YouTube.

I'll need to watch that again and then perhaps contribute here. Hmm...

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jedijudy:
I found half a roach in the hot chocolate I drank in a cafe, once. Yucky. I didn't yell or throw the drink so as not to frighten the other patrons. I quietly went to tell the manager, who didn't care, then I proceeded to say (loudly), "You don't care that there was half a bug in my cocoa?" I wasn't the only one who left, then.

In a way, the fact that it was a half roach is almost more disturbing if you think about it at all. If it were a whole roach, it might have somehow crawled in under its own power looking for food (still gross), but a half roach...would that have had to be put in your cocoa? I hope not! Also, where does one get half a roach but...

Ew. Either the Worst Sanitation Ever, or outright malice. While the latter might explain why the manager didn't care, it probably is less worth thinking about.

Double ew.

Okay, so actually worth thinking about: artichokes aren't kosher. Well, okay. The artichokes themselves are, but all the little tiny insects in between the leaves and in the tiny crevices of the heart means that it's next to impossible to make them kosher. There's a whole list of fruits and vegetables that either have to be very stringently cleaned or are impossible to clean of insects and, thus, might not be kosher.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
Natural red food colouring.

Need I say more? I'm sure many vegetatarians would have unwittingly eaten beetle in the form of the cake colouring cochineal.

Yes. I went right off Campari when I discovered what was in it.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
. I went right off Campari when I discovered what was in it.

I went right off Campari once I tasted it.

Posted by lily pad (# 11456) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
. I went right off Campari when I discovered what was in it.
I went right off Campari once I tasted it.

You can go back. They stopped.

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

Red smarties are not as good now they are vegetarian either.

Mmmm, I just feel like a campari and soda with a dab of gin. Maybe a silverfish or two as garnish?

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Quite happily. If I can eat fish milts/soft roes, aka fish sperm, I can eat insects.
Eergh! I find them awful. And I've got some in my fridge that came gratis with a herring (I was hoping for hard roe.) It's something about the texture. It goes for brains, spinal chord (though they are now off the menu), similar bits of offal, and stuff out of scallops.

But not, oddly, for sweet things like blancmange and panna cotta, which have similar mouth feel - so it has to be the Yuk factor really.

It's not that different from a soft scrambled egg or tofu texture - do you like either of those?

I used to eat herring or cod milts a lot as a child as a cheap meal (not knowing what they were anatomically-speaking). My nana used to make them into a kind of fritter which was delicious with lots of salt and vinegar.

Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
[...] Mmmm, I just feel like a campari and soda with a dab of gin. Maybe a silverfish or two as garnish?

Well, you're an owl. You do eat insects. [Biased]

I'm still wondering how I'd react to insect food.

Can't have stuff stuck between my teeth, so those bits would certainly have to go first. Crunched up and used as a meat replacement (under appropriate supervision by the relevant gov't authorities) I'd probably give it a try. After all, I do eat tofu and sushi and shrimps, so it can't be too different in taste or non-taste, and I believe these are reasonably well scrutinised.

Raw and alive insects I'd prolly renounce. Cooked or fried, especially without the sticky bits... not sure, but I guess I might try.

But, and this bugs me: is it just me who'd like to have the beasties thoroughly washed and, ehem, sort of disinfected before putting them in my mouth? Don't want to get any infections!

And you certainly wouldn't want a horse-fly on your plate if you ordered a lady cow.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wesley J:

quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
[...] Mmmm, I just feel like a campari and soda with a dab of gin. Maybe a silverfish or two as garnish?
Well, you're an owl. You do eat insects.

I'm still wondering how I'd react to insect food.

Can't have stuff stuck between my teeth, so those bits would certainly have to go first. Crunched up and used as a meat replacement (under appropriate supervision by the relevant gov't authorities) I'd probably give it a try. After all, I do eat tofu and sushi and shrimps, so it can't be too different in taste or non-taste, and I believe these are reasonably well scrutinised.

Raw and alive insects I'd prolly renounce. Cooked or fried, especially without the sticky bits... not sure, but I guess I might try.

But, and this bugs me: is it just me who'd like to have the beasties thoroughly washed and, ehem, sort of disinfected before putting them in my mouth? Don't want to get any infections!

And you certainly wouldn't want a horse-fly on your plate if you ordered a lady cow.

Cooking and then your own stomach acid is enough of a disinfectant - why do you think insects are more infection-prone than other creatures? Do you disinfect meat you cook at home? [Confused]

Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on :

You know, that's what I've been asking myself all along here. I think it's just the initial yuck factor you need to overcome.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

I've eaten kina - which are the eggs of a sea urchin endemic to NZ - once to be courteous to my hosts. Among traditional Maori food thay are considered a delicacy. I haven't eaten Huhu grubs, which are the lavae of a beetle found in rotten trees and are another Maori delicacy. I have heard they taste like peanut butter.

Huia

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Cooking and then your own stomach acid is enough of a disinfectant - why do you think insects are more infection-prone than other creatures?

It's where they crawl and what they live on.

quote:
Originally posted by Wesley J:
I think it's just the initial yuck factor you need to overcome.

Mercifully, it's all still optional.

You'd need rather a lot of insects, anyway, to make a cricketburger.

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
You'd need rather a lot of insects, anyway, to make a cricketburger.

Its like the instruction on making potted woodlice* which begin "gather four ounces of woodlice...". I believe that is about a week's foraging far and wide for a couple of morsels to spread on toast. They were quite tasty though probably not worth it given that potted shrimp is only a couple of quid at the supermarket.

*crustaceans rather then insects but much alike for culinary purposes

Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on :

Isn't the main point, though, that there should be insect farming on an industrial scale? I don't see how the food shortage the UN talks about could be addressed otherwise.

You might get organic or conventional farming methods there too, like with most other food, and with all the pros and cons. Perhaps you just need a trailblazer making this more readily available, and at reasonable prices. What you pay now in the West, and for insects as novelity food, is ludicrous and unlikely to appeal to the masses.

Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :

regarding cochineal, vegetarians tend to be very aware of what is in the food. Back in the day, most biscuits were made with pork or beef fat so lots of should be ok things, weren't.

So the answer to this would have been, no thanks, but I'd rather eat a bug than a pig. These days, I'll eat what (non-quadruped) there is, but I want things to be properly and quickly dead, and how do you do that with insects?

So the ick factor around insects is their dirty little feet and inextricable digestive systems.

inextricable? inextractible? irremovable. Food goes in, poo comes out, insects tend to get eaten whole. yuk.

eta: but give me cricket burgers or locust roast and I'll eat them, if I need to.

[ 29. May 2013, 14:37: Message edited by: Taliesin ]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Wesley J: Isn't the main point, though, that there should be insect farming on an industrial scale? I don't see how the food shortage the UN talks about could be addressed otherwise.

I'm getting a bit purgatorial here, but the reason that there are food shortages in some places in the world usually isn't that insufficient food is being produced worldwide. More industrial production of insect-based food (or any food) won't necessarily resolve this.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Quite happily. If I can eat fish milts/soft roes, aka fish sperm, I can eat insects.
Eergh! I find them awful. And I've got some in my fridge that came gratis with a herring (I was hoping for hard roe.) It's something about the texture. It goes for brains, spinal chord (though they are now off the menu), similar bits of offal, and stuff out of scallops.

But not, oddly, for sweet things like blancmange and panna cotta, which have similar mouth feel - so it has to be the Yuk factor really.
It's not that different from a soft scrambled egg or tofu texture - do you like either of those?

I used to eat herring or cod milts a lot as a child as a cheap meal (not knowing what they were anatomically-speaking). My nana used to make them into a kind of fritter which was delicious with lots of salt and vinegar.

Fritters is what I was thinking of doing with those roes, or, haha, mixing them into scrambled eggs. I don't have much experience of tofu. I tried a recipe for a "cheesecake" when trying to give tasty food to a friend's vegan daughter in hospital with anorexia, and it tasted rather beany, so it wasn't very attractive in that guise.

On the farming programme on the radio a couple of days ago they were discussing making protein feed for cattle from maggots fed on waste, but also visited a maggot farm in South Africa which was producing feed, also fed on waste, for fish and poultry, for which creatures insects are natural food, and that sounded a good idea.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

I like tofu - if you have ever had paneer, firm tofu is quite similar (and makes a good substitution for paneer to make curries lower in calories). Silken tofu mixed with cocoa powder and some icing sugar (or sweetener) and mixed very well (by hand or in a mixture) makes a lovely low-fat chocolate pud - doesn't taste beany at all because cocoa is a good strong flavour. Even plain raw tofu doesn't taste particularly beany so I think maybe yours was off in some way.

I did hear about using maggots for animal feed - for fowl and fish this makes sense, but it does concern me that this could be used for cattle feed as cows are herbivores and should be fed on grass or (for very inferior beef) grain. Animal-based feed for cattle hasn't had great results in the past, cf foot and mouth...

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

A farmer interviewed was not very keen as he thought none of his customers would want to eat the stuff. His cattle are grass fed in summer and fed on silage in winter. Which is as it should be.

I don't think it was off - I think it was the recipe which did things to it it wasn't designed to have done to it. It wasn't bad beany, and would have been fine in a savoury recipe. It was an odd recipe book, full of the sort of things that vegetarian books gave up on years ago, pretending to be what the eaters had given up on.

[ 29. May 2013, 19:48: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Unless you are very strictly kosher, you have eaten insects. The nature of food production virtually guarantees this.

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
In a way, the fact that it was a half roach is almost more disturbing if you think about it at all.

Exactly!

If I wanted to make y'all queasy, I could tell you some bug stories. *shudder*

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
I've eaten kina - which are the eggs of a sea urchin endemic to NZ - once to be courteous to my hosts. Among traditional Maori food thay are considered a delicacy. I haven't eaten Huhu grubs, which are the lavae of a beetle found in rotten trees and are another Maori delicacy. I have heard they taste like peanut butter.

Huia

Sea urchins are great. The white ones you can just pick up the Caribbean, crack 'em open and fry up the insides. Make sure you rinse the sand out well. Love them! I've had them raw as well, which is okay, but the texture is a little gooshy. The black or purple ones I suspect are probably also delicious, but the prickly long spines can break off in your skin so I never have.

If we're on sea bugs, I love crabs, particularly the tamale. This is the stuff in the head and between the halves. It is mostly partly digested things the crab ate. It's the most flavourful part of the thing. We used to go the west coast and it was permitted to simple dive down and net them up, boil them on the beach. Lobsters have disappointed me because they lack this.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jedijudy:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
In a way, the fact that it was a half roach is almost more disturbing if you think about it at all.
Exactly!

If I wanted to make y'all queasy, I could tell you some bug stories. *shudder*

No, thank you... this thread is enough to make me go off my lunch as it is! [Eek!]

Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on :

Depends on how they are prepared. I have eaten fried grasshoppers. I am sure I have unknowingly eaten bits and pieces over the years in spices and grains. The way I look at it protein is protein.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

I would much rather eat an insect than a "Rocky Mountain Oyster", a.k.a. deer, moose, elk testicles. Ugh! In college, I had a friend who had been raised in Montana and her family regularly cooked and ate deer testicles. She said they were extremely chewy. I think she was
nuts to do such a thing but she did have a
ball growing up in the wilds of Montana.
[Snigger]

Posted by LucyP (# 10476) on :

On a bush tucker tour near Darwin in my young adventurous days, I tried green ants (you have to be sure to squash them first, or they bite/sting). As the website says, they do taste lemon-y.

A word of warning to anyone who wants to eat uncooked garden slugs - they can carry the rat lung worm, which can cause meningitis. At least 2 men have been infected (2003 and 2010) after swallowing slugs for a dare.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

If I was completely unaware of insects in my food, I might be okay. As long as the taste wasn't so extreme to leave me gagging. One of my friends baked some chocolate-chip cricket cookies once for a classroom assignment. She gave me a few and I ate them willingly. Afterwards, she told me what was in them and I felt momentarily ill but then had to shrug it off. I didn't notice anything different, really, except I thought the cookies were crunchier than usual and assumed she had put nuts in the batter. One of my wives had to eat all manner of grubs and things in Navy survival training. She told me that grubs were pretty good when she roasted them. Tasted like walnuts. I certainly couldn't see myself eating any bug/grub/creepy crawly raw

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

If we're on sea bugs, I love crabs, particularly the tamale. This is the stuff in the head and between the halves. It is mostly partly digested things the crab ate. It's the most flavourful part of the thing. We used to go the west coast and it was permitted to simple dive down and net them up, boil them on the beach. Lobsters have disappointed me because they lack this.

Actually....

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The5thMary:
I would much rather eat an insect than a "Rocky Mountain Oyster", a.k.a. deer, moose, elk testicles. Ugh! In college, I had a friend who had been raised in Montana and her family regularly cooked and ate deer testicles. She said they were extremely chewy. I think she was
nuts to do such a thing but she did have a
ball growing up in the wilds of Montana.

Calf testicles are very tender, and extremely delicious.

Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on :

That's bollocks.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LucyP:

A word of warning to anyone who wants to eat uncooked garden slugs - they can carry the rat lung worm, which can cause meningitis. At least 2 men have been infected (2003 and 2010) after swallowing slugs for a dare.

Yuck, yuck and thrice yuck! I am constantly amazed at the stupidity of some people! I once pulled out a slug from a bag of potatoes I was peeling - the thought of actually swallowing such a thing.... ewwwww!

[Projectile]

Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on :

It seems cooked slugs - or was that snails? - are a delicacy in places like France. Has anyone ever had any? They could be halfway between regular food and insects. (The slugs/snails, not the eaters.)

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

Escargot can be fantastic if they are fried in lots of garlic butter until tender. They are like a garlicky, buttery, meaty slice of mushroom. Eaten out of the shell they can be like vaguely rubber flavoured whelks which is not nice at all. A chef can make then divine or disgusting as they are pretty tasteless chewy things without a fair bit of attention.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

So, what you are really saying is that you like garlic and butter. So why not find a non-disgusting material upon which to put it?

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So, what you are really saying is that you like garlic and butter. So why not find a non-disgusting material upon which to put it?

Like tasty and toothsome helix snails?

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So, what you are really saying is that you like garlic and butter. So why not find a non-disgusting material upon which to put it?

I like vindaloo sauce as well but it has always been more acceptable on rice than cornflakes*. Who knows why such things get put together, I wouldn't pass up a garlic mushroom in favour of an escargot but if its the only garlicky thing on the menu then...I like my garlic!

*vindaloo cornflakes are delicious but the world seems strangely reluctant to embrace the concept.

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