I have a book entitled Unmentionable Cuisine. Among other
delicacies, it contains a recipe for a Vietnamese cricket
dish. I've been somewhat curious about recipes involving
insects but have been wary of simply collecting bugs from
around the house, since I have no idea what kinds of
chemical toxins they might have picked up from the
environment. However, I recently learned from a friend
that she feeds her pet turtle crickets (presumably from a
pet store) and that she feeds her crickets corn meal. So,
it occurred to me that even if the crickets are
thoroughly polluted, if one raises them for a generation
or two, the younger generation should be free of the
pollutants that their parents or grandparents might have
picked up. And that, therefore, reopens the question of
insectivorous cuisine.
I have never actually eaten insects, as far as I know. I
just have a few questions about eating crickets:
(1) Has anyone here ever tried it?
(2) According to Unmentionable Cuisine, one prepares the
crickets the same way one prepares grasshoppers and
locusts, removing the wings, the small legs, the distal
portion of the hind legs, the head and any attached
viscera. What exactly is left and how many crickets does
one need to make a decent meal for one adult human male?
(3) The book doesn't say how to kill the crickets
before doing this nor even whether one ought to
kill them first.
(4) The only cricket recipe the book gives is for Fried Mole
Cricket, called con-de-com in Vietnam. However, there
are several recipes for grasshoppers and locusts. Can
one also substitute crickets for grasshoppers and
locusts in those recipes?
(5) Regarding the latter, on p.367 the book says: "Locusts
are merely skewered, roasted, and nibbled as hor
d'oeuvres in several countries." It isn't clear from
this description whether they are prepared as in
(6) before doing this, nor whether one nibbles the
entire insect or whether there are only certain
parts one eats.
Ignorantly, Allan Adler [email hidden]
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* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT
Artificial *
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