Cordain suggests that prior to the agricultural revolution, early humans ate this Paleo Diet for 2.5 million years. The 10,000 years since the popularization of farming — or just 333 human generations — he says, is clearly a drop in the chronological bucket when compared with the millennia leading up to it. Thus, he maintains, the hunter-gatherer diet our ancestors lived on is far more deeply and indelibly imprinted into our DNA than our habits of the last few thousand years. I'm inclined to agree with him. In fact, I'm going to see his 2.5 million years and raise him a few millennia, and show you what we were really designed to eat. The real Paleo Diet would have included bugs. Lots and lots of bugs.
You ever tried eating bugs? I've wanted to, but I can't bring myself to do it. My cousin, who has traveled extensively in South America, has had a bunch of different kinds, and actually has some not half bad things to say about some cicadas that he ate in Peru. Apparently the meat is somewhat similar to shrimp. Makes sense, I suppose, but my brain just won't let me do it. My disgust, it seems, is much stronger than my curiosity.
I think we can split the difference and agree they taste like formic acid. Except some of the big ones who taste like straw and Odorous house ants that taste like rancid butter.
Ever had lobster or shrimp? you've already eaten bugs.
Yes...but no. With lobster and shrimp, the gross innards and outer shell are removed and then the meat is cooked. That isn't the case with bugs and may be part of the reason I'm turned off by them. For the record, I'm not a huge fan of shrimp. I'll do clams and crab but I dislike the texture of shrimp. Fucking textures get me. I still don't eat bananas for that same reason.
As a cook and a New Englander I find that bothersomely inaccurate. I hate to blow your day, but lobster is always cooked alive and served 100% whole, unless the lobster meat is part of another dish (i.e. lobster salad, lobster mashed potatoes, etc), in which case somebody else tears it apart. Where I grew up, on the shoreline, digging in and dismantling the lobster is part of the experience. We gift each other expensive sets of tools designed solely for dismantling and eating a whole, cooked lobster. With shrimp and crayfish preparation can vary, but cooking whole isn't uncommon, although serving whole is.the gross innards and outer shell are removed and then the meat is cooked.
I've gone both diving and hoop netting to catch and then cook lobster myself. The first thing you do is take out the poop and that jazz. And then you cook. And then you rip in and pick and choose the pieces you eat. Same with shrimp. Watching a skilled person shell and devein the shrimp is one of the most brilliant things I've seen. Such speed and precision. My only point is that is a very different experience than having a bug picked up off the ground, fried, and served to you.
...well, arthropods. I'm not sure there's an official definition of "bug" but I think on the Venn diagram, there's lots of overlap with "insect" and "arachnid" and minor overlap with "crustacean" largely due to wood lice. Probably why we eat lobsters and shrimp but not these:
Moreton Bay Bugs are f'ing delicious. I had them fresh in Thailand and if they weren't $40/lb frozen before shipping, I'd eat them more often. I hear Mantis shrimp are also delicious. They're hell on reef tanks, too. You need a better picture, though. After all, we are talking about Genghis Khan bathed in sherbet.
Dang, that's expensive . . . Yeah, I saw that too (love The Oatmeal), I just figured I'd use a picture closer to how I first encountered them, which was basically these three drunk Vietnamese dudes we'd never seen before, pushing a plate of those things our way. Turns out, they were just being really friendly and offering us a delicacy! Deliciousness aside, those things are crazy.
I'd want someone else to eat it first. Dunno. Lobster doesn't exactly turn my crank, but I f'in love Spot Prawns which pretty much fill the same ecological niche. I see that much meat on the half shell that hasn't been chewed on and I presume there's a reason. Some critters just ain't good eatin' and I'm A-OK being the 2nd person to find that out.
Everybody knows somebody who'd take the first bite. My brother's friend Craig would do it.
Whenever I see someone describe bugs they've eaten, it's always things like "not bad" and "it was better than I expected." Seems like most people compare it to what they imagine it would taste like, considering how gross it looks. And comparatively, in my experience at least, it usually could be much worse. But they aren't good either. I've never heard someone say "damn, that is a tasty bug."
I am extremely open minded when it comes to food or things that are edible. I'm also an avid believer in trying anything once - if someone tells me to eat that thing, I'm going to eat it. But I've never really enjoyed any bugs that I've eaten. I'm always glad that I tried it, but given the choice I'd stick to my current diet. Maybe things would be different if I was born as an echidna or something.
I know Andrew Zimmern is always a strong proponent of introducing bugs into the western diet, although coming from him of all people, you aren't instilled with confidence that the typical person could actually enjoy it. He is right though, bugs have been a worldly food for ages and they're highly nutritious. I wonder how the issue of world hunger would change if we considered bugs food worldwide. I do recall various kids eating ants back in elementary school. I don't remember eating any myself but I always heard they were kinda spicy. Back then it didn't seem so weird.
I think the problem is that cultures that tend to eat bugs tend to eat other things that civilized white folk aren't too keen on. As such, their treatment of "bug" ends up not doing much to increase their palatability to your average 1st world honky. I'd be curious what the French would do with, say, a pound of crickets. They seem to do just fine with snails (although I still prefer my mollusks to come from the ocean).
I haven't tried them, but I hear that Huhu grubs are delicious, and taste a little like peanut butter.
I have heard roaches taste like cashews. You don't eat them who but boil them in salted water and peel them like shrimp or crayfish it is usually done with the larger ones in SE - Asia. There is a part of you that wants to eat roaches now.
Pshaw! A weta's just a funny-lookin' cricket. Even the big ones are barely bigger than Oklahoma grasshoppers.
That is a pretty big weta, I'll give you that. The big ones are rare, though. There are littler ones all over the place - cricket-sized ones are very common around here in Auckland. I've seen grasshoppers well over half that size in OK - those bastards hurt when you smack into them when you're riding a motorcycle.
And just to return to the subject - wetas taste nasty, apparently. Bear Grylls did a survival-theatre show here, and he got some schmucks to eat wetas. They all said it was one of the foulest things they'd ever eaten. Edit - found it : http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/4725261/Bear-Grylls-eats-weta-and-wishes-he-hadn-t
Yeah, I'm good. I don't care how nutritional or yummy you tell me they are, I am a sissy and don't have the slightest urge to try them. I'm down to try and experience pretty much anything else but for whatever reason bugs just don't do it for me. Unless Fear Factor. Then, fuck being a pussy let's eat up and jump off a building!
I love this last line of the article: Makes me think of that story you once told about seeing a giant bug in your apartment, then like pissing yourself and getting locked out, or something; can't remember all the deets, but I remember it was a hilarious story.Oh, how times have changed: When an early female hominid saw a bug and shrieked, it was in excitement, because hey, lunch.
Here's the story. It's even better told in person because it has the sound effects. :P Yes. I am a sissy when it comes to bugs. http://hubski.com/pub?id=19865
Epic. So. Ever seen a vinegaroon? Now you have. This is important because they live in New Mexico. Much as I did once. And my buddy, back when we were 17, found one in his room. Yeah, not quite that big. Close. It was obviously a bit of a shock, and more than a little intimidating. However, we eventually screwed up our courage and rationalized that it was just a bug. I had a pretty good idea that it was a vinegaroon (they're actually pretty reclusive; you never see them); at worst, it was a pseudoscorpion and not likely to have any ability to sting us to death. So with that settled, the hunt was on. Not being female college students, we decided that the coolest thing to do would be capture it and feed other bugs to it. We put a clear piece of printer over the top of it - think 8.5x11 Lexan tupperware - and it bumbled around most amusingly. Despite the fact that it started the evening as Death on a Stick, a few minutes of watching that thing stumble about was enough for us to name it Clarence. So now we needed to find crane flies for Clarence to eat. The capture was the easy part. Amazingly enough, Clarence and the crane fly bumped into each other a few times as Clarence paced the perimeter of his prison and the crane fly did what crane flies the world over do. We'd just about lost interest when Clarence reached out lighting-quick and snatched the crane fly out of the sky. (all inch and a half of sky, to be honest) We watched in a mix of horror and fascination as Clarence cheerfully passed the crane fly through his mandibles as if he were kneading bread dough. An insect went in the left end; a shriveled and desiccated husk came out the right. It took Clarence a good fifteen minutes to finish up, and then he rubbed his mandibles together rhythmically, gleefully, comically for another few. And then we heard a mouse. It was full Wild Kingdom now: And despite the fact that it was probably 1am, and despite the fact that it was Wednesday night, and despite the fact that my buddy’s parents and sister were asleep not too far away, we were going to catch that goddamn mouse. So we cornered him under the bed and he got away. And we cornered him behind the hamper and he got away. Then we cornered him behind the bookshelf and although there was nowhere he could go, he was well out of reach. In my defense, the idea hit us both simultaneously. In our defense, we’d caught rodents with a shop vac before - they plunk harmlessly into the bin. And in our defense, it was now 2am and if we’d had any sense, we wouldn’t run a vacuum at 2am on a Wednesday anyway. All that said, we didn’t have a shop vac, we had a dirt devil hand vac with an extension hose that was just the right size to fit a mouse and it made the most satisfactory fwump as it went down the hose and then we looked at each other in horror as we realized which side of the impeller the bag was on and then, well… So now it’s 2am, it’s Wednesday, we have Clarence the Killer Cricket under glass in one room and one of these full of mouse guts in the other. Mouse intestines. Around the brush. Mouse paws. In the bristles. Mouse pelt. Wrapped around the impeller. And the saddest thing is we were laughing uncontrollably the entire time. It’s amazing his parents didn’t wake up. Perhaps they realized that two teenaged boys with a dirt devil at 2am on a Wednesday just wasn’t something they wanted to know about. By 2:30 we had the dirt devil restored to a non-abbatoir state of functionality. Clarence was still cheerfully rubbing his mandibles together. We decided our best move was to let him go far, far away from the house and hope he didn’t make his way back. We sure weren’t going to squish him. For one thing, he could probably kick our asses. And for another, we’d had about enough reality for one evening.
Naturally... And this is why I prefer to be a college girl. Decisions, yo.Not being female college students, we decided that the coolest thing to do would be capture it and feed other bugs to it
So now it’s 2am, it’s Wednesday, we have Clarence the Killer Cricket under glass in one room and one of these full of mouse guts in the other.