Every few months, someone decides to write an edible-insect story, mostly for the cheap shock value. But a recent Reuters piece deserves credit for actually making its subject—crickets—sound kinda… good.
‘The taste is very particular, very special and it smells good and tastes delicious but it is very difficult to compare cricket to other meat,’ said [insect dealer Le Thanh Tung], 28, suggesting that crickets are an acquired taste.
The premise of the article is that once you’ve deep-fried a barrel of bugs, they make perfect finger food for drinkers—in Vietnam, at least. But will fried bugs catch on in the States? As long as we’ve got SunChips, Beer Nuts, and a relatively healthy national economy, probably not. (That should put fried bugs on the menu at your local tavern by sometime around mid-2007.)
In defense of cricket skeptics, there is very little that can’t be deep-fried and fed to drunk people. In defense of cricket partisans: Isn’t it time that serious chefs and chowhands got acquainted with a whole new class of edible life forms? How often does that opportunity present itself?
Deep fried insects are good whereever they’re a part of the diet in Asia. You don’t need to be drunk. People don’t eat any or all insects. In the upland Philippines, soil dwelling white grubs become adults once a year or once every two years (depending on species) and swarm in particular trees. People then knock them out of the trees and fry them up. They wouldn’t think of eating other types of insects.
My Colombian friend brought a container of fried ants (large variety) to share with his friends in the US. All was fine until one of the “tasters” got a leg stuck in his teeth. There’s nothing like flossing up a disembodied ant leg to keep this a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Then again, just remember that locusts are kosher (and nutritious!)
And the crickets are saying, “Thank goodness humans have an aversion to eating landlubbing insects and choose to devour and pay a pretty penny for the seafaring ones!”
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