Witchetty grubs have an image problem. Being white, fat and, well, grubby looking, they just don’t look all that good on the plate. The thought of popping one into your mouth is less mouth-watering than stomach churning, which is why TV reality shows delight in forcing celebrities to eat them regularly.
Cooked, ground grasshopper (which could reasonably be fashioned into a burger shape and disguised under a bun) is 60 per cent protein, with just six per cent fat
But if you hollowed the grub out, sliced the lightly fried skin into rings and served it tossed with olive oil, garlic and a squeeze of lemon, it would look remarkably like squid, another amorphous, white creature. It’s just that we are accustomed to eating squid.
Food is one way in which cultural groups express themselves. In fact, according to historian Massimo Montanari, food is culture. He says that the choices humans make are determined by economics (what is available) and medicine (digestibility and nutrition). “Food is the most effective means of expressing and communicating human identity,” he continues. Thus, one woman’s tasty seafood dish is another’s nausea-inducing culinary nightmare.
In Europe and North America, we tend not to eat insects perhaps because other foods became more readily available after we switched to farming, while bugs became the corn-eating enemy. However, we happily scoff pork and oysters, which other cultures reject as dirty. And we’re more than content to chow down clams, lobster and that most Maltese of specialities, snails, while eschewing crickets, caterpillars and flies.
The United Nations are hoping to change that. Their report published in May says that eating insects is the best way to feed the nine billion people who will be alive by 2050. Termites, ants, caterpillars and beetles have the advantage of growing very quickly. In addition, while cattle and poultry need a lot of feed per kilo of their own body weight, crickets need only two kilos for every one kilo of weight gained. Handily, insects can also eat waste products such as human faeces and abattoir scraps, produce less greenhouse gases and need less land than traditional farmed animals. In short, if we all ate more creepy crawlies and fed them to our farm animals, the Earth’s forests and oceans would breathe a little easier.
Insects also have health benefits. Dr Manfred Kroger, a professor of food science at Penn State University, notes that a hamburger is 18 per cent protein and 18 per cent fat. Cooked, ground grasshopper (which could reasonably be fashioned into a burger shape and disguised under a bun) is 60 per cent protein, with just six per cent fat.
The idea that you will soon be ordering a plate of toasted wasps might seem a little outlandish right now, but 20 years ago, many westerners would have scoffed at the idea of eating raw fish. Now we queue up at places like Zest and Sako Sushi in St Julian’s to devour raw eel, octopus, shrimp and seabass. It’s perhaps not that great a stretch to imagine the same conveyor belt carrying morsels of bread made from termites, chocolate-coated bees, locust ravioli or barbecued grasshoppers. After all, shrimp and lobster are arthropods, just like insects.
With great foresight, Archipelago in London is already doing this. This West End restaurant has a menu full of oddities such as Nepalese spiced zebra roulade or zhug marinated kangaroo fillet with water spinach and choi, but you’ll also find several bug-inspired dishes too. How about chilli and garlic locusts with crunchy, garlicky love bugs on the side? Queen bee salad and mealworm caviar are also popular. And if you’re not bugged out after that, there’s scorpion in chocolate for dessert. Of course. Rave reviews and a packed house suggest that the bugs are more of a draw than a repellent.
If you want to throw yourself into the deep end of entomophagy (the practice of eating insects), then head Down Under to sample the witchetty grub. They are actually the wood-eating larvae of several moth species and were an important part of the diet of Aboriginal people, who dug them out of roots of trees. They’re not that easy to find away from the outback, but the Inn Mahogany Creek just outside Perth has them on the menu. This high-protein snack is traditionally eaten raw or lightly cooked in the ashes of the fire and apparently tastes like a nutty fried egg. For other Australian bush tucker, try Tukka Restaurant in the West End of Brisbane. Their inventive menu includes native rainforest fruits, desert tomato seasoning, pepperberry, emu, wallaby and possum.
While insects remain alien to our diets, eating eggs every which way couldn’t be more normal. In the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia, eggs called balut are equally popular. Sold mainly by street vendors, it’s a soft boiled egg (so far so good) ... but a fertilised one. When you take the top off, a miniature bird (usually duck) is inside, still attached to the yolk sac. Clearly there is technically no difference between eating this and, say, a hearty chicken broth, but there’s something truly stomach turning about seeing an entire featherless chick on your spoon. Apparently, you sip the ‘broth’ around the embryo first, then peel the egg to eat the yolk and chick. They are often served with beer, if that helps.
Sold mainly by street vendors, it’s a soft boiled egg (so far so good) ... but a fertilised one. When you take the top off, a miniature bird (usually duck) is inside, still attached to the yolk sac
At the opposite end of the size spectrum, desert Bedouins are reputed to eat a whole stuffed camel at wedding feasts, the stuffing being a lamb stuffed with 20 chickens, stuffed with eggs and rice. You won’t find the dish on any menu though and there is some scepticism as to whether it actually exists; presumably you’d have to track down genuine desert Bedouins to find out. Since it is rapidly becoming the culinary grail of intrepid travellers, doubtless some inventive restaurant owner will soon start featuring it.
In the US, sad to say, Rocky Mountain oysters are considerably easier to find. This culinary ‘delight’ is rather euphemistically named, never having been anywhere near the ocean. It’s more fruit of the loins than fruit of the sea, consisting of a bull’s testicles. The Buckhorn Exchange in Denver has them on the menu for a mere €6.50 for a half order (probably wise). Horseradish sauce is available for dipping.
The American cowboy influence can also be felt with another speciality – fried cow brain sandwich. Mad cow disease notwithstanding, Schottzie’s Bar and Grill in St Louis still has it on the menu, served on toasted swirl rye bread with red onions, pickles and hot country mustard. The fact that it’s high in fat is probably the least of your worries.
If the thought of eating brain leaves you suicidal, opt for Fugu. This is fried pufferfish, which sounds fairly innocuous. The fly in the ointment is that this particular fish contains tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin. The immediate effects are paralysis of the muscles, including the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles. When these particular muscles don’t work, you stop breathing. This dalliance with death has led the fish to become one of Japan’s most celebrated and feared dishes, and chefs train for years to remove the internal organs and spines of the fish without releasing the poison. Try it at a branch of the Japanese chain restaurant Torafugu-Tei for around €40. Don’t ask for the liver unless you fancy a stay in a Japanese hospital.
If Japan’s too far to go for death-inducing fare, take a trip instead to Scotland. They serve haggis, which is absolutely delicious as long as you don’t dwell too long on what’s in it (minced heart, lung and liver of sheep with onion, spices and porridge oats). The entire shebang is traditionally boiled in sheep’s stomach, although of late, normal sausage casings have been used. It’s served with tatties and neeps (potatoes and turnips) and in itself is not deadly.
However, deep fried and paired with the regular consumption of an equally deep-fried Mars Bar, the meal is likely to lead straight to A&E via a heart attack. The oddly named Cafe Piccante in Edinburgh can furnish you with both for €5. At least you’ll die happy. Bon appétit!