Ben:
>Well I'm sure I've just turned several of your stomachs -- sorry if I did.
>But
>since some of you had expressed either experience or interest in the field of
>insect cuisine, I thought I'd share a beginner's experience.  Not that I'm
>planning on munching on insects regularly (in fact I am somewhat amazed that I
>even did it in the first place), but I am glad that I was able to perhaps
>catch
>a glimpse of a different way of eating.  If Kirt or anybody else I
>mentioned has
>had any similar experience, I'd love to hear it.

I've chomped maybe a dozen grasshoppers in my days, including a couple from
the infamous Chateau de Montrame outside of Paris where Bruno Cromby et al
were raising various batches on different diets. One was supposed to taste
like a favorite cheese that many French instinctos remembered fondly but,
alas, dairy is taboo for instinctos, so, hey, raise some cheese-flavored
grasshoppers, eh? Anyway, I sampled my Chateau hoppers (and some dried
bees) after a big meal--probably the silliest time to eat anything--and
there wasn't much taste to them. Otherwise, the occasional hopper jumps in
my mouth and its interesting but nothing to write home about.

Bruno Cromby reportedly has a book (in French) about insect eating which
includes plans for raising your own hoppers. I can't read French but it is
apparently pretty simple. In an aquarium-like enclosure (covered top) you
put down pebbles/sand/dirt/whatever and catch some wild hoppers to put in
there. Feed them any vegetable scraps I guess. Let em breed and to harvest
them you put little cardboard boxes (like match boxes) with an entrance on
one side only down in any nook and cranny. Supposedly when you tap the
sides of the aquarium the hoppers duck into the boxes and you can remove
the box and slurp down your catch like raisonettes at the cinima. Probably
some of the european listers can correct the many mistakes in my
understanding of this method (which was a secondhand translation from a
dutch fellow who hadn't read the book but heard about it).

There is also the Food Insect Newsletter which has info on raising your own
insects. Mealworms are supposedly a good project for beginners.

And as I've mentioned many times: bee larvae are my insect of choice. More
like melted butter than soft marrow even, quite comparable to the buttery
stuff in the lobster head. Which reminds me, eating a raw lobster or crab
(not just the muscle meat which is pretty lame compared to the rest) is
probably a far more deeply gross out type of thing for most folks than the
quick flutter of a live grasshopper in your mouth before you "expose the
flavorful juices". ;)

OK, Ben, your next assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to eat
the worms found in organic sweet corn, especially one's own garden, and
report back in vivid detail. ;)

Cheers,
Kirt

Secola  /\  Nieft
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