Cooking Crickets

LoganV

I saw an article today in the El País food blog, La Comidista, about eating insects. Apparently it's common enough in other parts of the world and it sounds pretty interesting.

I'd been thinking about giving it a try for a while and I've gotten up the courage to finally give it a go. I was wondering has anyone out there tried anything similar? My plan at the moment is to get a box of crickets in a pet shop, put them in the fridge for a bit to calm them down then fry them in butter.

If anybody out there has anyexperience with entomophagy I'd love to hear.

Alun

I ate grasshoppers once in Japan and they appeared to have been fried quickly in oil in a wok with some red chilli. They were crunchy (obviously!) and a bit "nutty" from memory.

dee_mc

http://www.nyworms.com/roastedcrickets.htm
this sounds pretty nice, presumably you could add seasoning e.g. 5 spice powder?

edit: apparently you should ask what they have been fed in the pet shop before you buy them, if they have been fed sawdust, shredded newspaper etc you're meant to feed them 'fresh grain' for a couple of days to make them more flavoursome! who knew!

mike65

The guardian also has an article about eating insects, I think the UN is suggesting it would be good for the world, but I'm not so sure. The population of earth would continue to balloon and we'd just use up all the fresh water instead.

LoganV

Cool, thanks for that guys.

The plan has been amended to give the little fellows a few days to purge. I reckon just putting some porridge oats in their box and letting them munch away for a few days will do the trick.

Yeah, the food security and sustainability seems to be an aspect of this alright. I read somewhere that insects can produce the same nutrition as cattle but using a tenth of the space, a tanth of the resources and producing a tenth of the waste. Bonanza! I get to be adventurous and take credit for being ethical too!

foodaholic

I want pictures

Tom Dunne

Dear God, no.

Just no.

I am a very adventurous eater, but I draw the line at insects.

Qualitymark

Presumably you should kill them first rather than cooking them alive? Otherwise my hand's on the phone to call the DSPCA.

Recipes here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniella-martin/5-ways-to-cook-a-cricket_b_914543.html - it says to freeze them, which presumably kills the poor little things.

vibe666

Qualitymark wrote: »

Presumably you should kill them first rather than cooking them alive? Otherwise my hand's on the phone to call the DSPCA.

Recipes here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniella-martin/5-ways-to-cook-a-cricket_b_914543.html - it says to freeze them, which presumably kills the poor little things.

pretty sure insects aren't on the list of things the DSPCA will come out for, but if they are then lock me up now, i've got a windscreen full of flies i'm responsible for murdering.

also, they'd be asleep from the fridge by the time they got cooked and being deep fried will kill them pretty much instantly, as opposed to dying a slow death from hypothermia.

also also, you're buying crickets from a pet shop which would otherwise have been fed live to peoples pet lizards etc. so potentially being deep fried is the least of their problems.

kylith

I'd like to give them a try, I've heard that crickets (or was it grasshoppers) taste a bit like ham. Apparently woodlice are very tasty too.

My initial reaction was 'urgh', but then I remembered how much I like prawns, and they're nothing but sea-insects.

vibe666

yeah, had the same thoughts about woodlice (not about eating them) being a lot like prawns.

i've actually eaten crickets in thailand and they were actually pretty tasty, but i couldn't get the voice in my head to stop shouting "you're eating crickets!" and by the time i'd got to the 4th one, my mate told me that you're supposed to pull the longest leg off the last one you eat so you can use it as a toothpick to get the bits out of your teeth and that was me pretty much done there and then! :eek:

kylith

HA, brilliant! Food with a built-in toothpick!