Edible insects are so hot right now. Once an exotic oddity that could only be found in far-flung continents, entomophagy (that is, the consumption of insects as food) is now making its way into numerous Aussie restaurants. But do fried bugs really belong on the dinner table? In a bid to find out, we chowed down on some crickets and mealworms. (Mmmm… spindly.)
Yesterday, I attended a Microsoft developer roundtable at Icon Park’s Stanley Street Merchants restaurant. Among the dishes served to guests were fried crickets and mealworms in fermented chilli. These were placed on the table without warning or explanation. As you can imagine, there were quite a few leftovers.
Intrigued, I decided to bring a takeaway box of these critters back to the office. How would the cast-iron stomachs of my teammates react to these segmented offerings? Check out the below video for the official Allure Media verdict.
Personally, I quite liked them. They kind of tasted like salted, oddly chewy peanuts. If they were reasonably priced, I’d happily snack on these things like popcorn. Mind you, I’m probably not the best judge when it comes to acceptable foodstuffs.
Comments
6 responses to “Taste Test: Do Edible Bugs Belong On The Dinner Table?”
I hope there’s some kind of movement to push them long-term. It’d be impossible to convince a significant number of people to eat them today, but maybe kids who grow up knowing insect-consumption as a thing and seeing it discussed will be less apprehensive. There are a lot of reasons to support it (sustainability foremost among them, raising beef and pork is resource-intensive so it’d be fantastic if there was an easier way of mass producing protein-rich foods) and only the gross factor to oppose it. And I’m sure cheese seems equally gross to people who don’t grow up seeing it.
There’s absolutely no reason they can’t process them like any food product into foodstuffs that are no different to say flour or meat. The ich factor doesn’t even need to be a thing…!
Exactly. They used to make red food colouring from crushed bugs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine
Not sure if it’s common now days.
I’ve had fried bugs in Thailand and they were pretty good. Spicy and crunchy, can eat them like peanuts or crisps. People eat crabs, yabbies and such all the time and they’re essentially big bugs of the sea. They even rather look alike.
I don’t see why not. We eat prawns, crayfish, etc. which are basically the bugs of the sea.
No…
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
just… no