Insects

Iowa State University's Tasty Insect Recipes - Ed McDevitt
             Bug Blox
             Banana Worm Bread
             Rootworm Beetle Dip
             Chocolate Chirpie Chip Cookies
Newly Fashionable: Insects For Snacks
Weevil Waffles - Diane Renshaw

Iowa State University's Tasty Insect Recipes - Ed McDevitt
Insects can be delicious and nutritious!
Bug Blox
2 large packages gelatin
2 1/2 cups boiling water (do not add cold water)
Stir boiling water into gelatin. Dissolve completely.
Stir in dry-roasted leafhoppers.
Pour mixture slowly into 13 x 9 inch pan. Chill at least 3 hours. BLOX will be firm after 1 hour, but may be difficult to remove from pan. Cutting blox: dip bottom pan in warm water 15 seconds to loosen gelatin. Cut shapes with cookie cutters all the way through gelatin. Lift with index finger or metal spatula. If blox stick, dip pan again for a few seconds.

Banana Worm Bread
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
2 bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts
2 eggs
1/4 cup dry-roasted army worms
Mix together all ingredients. Bake in greased loaf pan at 350 for about 1 hour.

Rootworm Beetle Dip
2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons skim milk
1/2 cup reduced calorie mayonnaise
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon onion, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. dill weed
1 1/2 tsp. Beau Monde
1 cup dry-roasted rootworm beetles
Blend first 3 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and chill.

Chocolate Chirpie Chip Cookies
2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 12-ounce chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup dry-roasted crickets
Preheat oven to 375. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In large bowl, combine butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla; beat until creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually add flour mixture and insects, mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded measuring teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
Recipes compliments of Kathy Gee and Julie Stephens.

Some insect treats were available at the annual Insect Horror Film Festival on September 12 and 13.
If you are interested in insect cookery, you may wish to get a copy of Entertaining With Insects. Or: The Original Guide to Insect Cookery by Ronald L. Taylor and Barbara J. Carter. It can be purchased from Salutek Publishing Co. at 5375 Crescent Dr., Yorba Linda, CA 92887, 714-692-7499 (voice and fax).
See also more insect treats (from University of Kentucky), and chocolate crickets from Fluker Farms.
Where can you get insects? Many pet-store suppliers sell insects in bulk. Please let me know if there are companies you have dealt with successfully. One company I've heard of is Rainbow Mealworms. Another is Grubco. There is also a list of suppliers of food for pets at The Herp Mall.
Disclaimer: The Department of Entomology at Iowa State University is not responsible for gastric distress, allergic reactions, feelings of repulsion, or other problems resulting from the ingestion of foods represented on this page.
Department of Entomology,
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.
Maintained by John VanDyk

Newly Fashionable: Insects For Snacks
By Justin Hunt
The Guardian
October 20, 2000
LONDON - If you are organizing a dinner party and are keen to offer your guests some unusual nibbles, why don't you offer them a plate of insects?
While the idea of eating crispy crickets or lightly fried beetles probably fills most of us with absolute horror, insect eating is apparently becoming highly fashionable in dotcom land. Swarms of trendy new media types are reportedly logging on to wacky Thai food Web sites and ordering samples of freshly cooked insects to serve at their hip dinner parties.
This bizarre form of snacking -known in some circles as "critter cuisine" - apparently goes on at Revolution magazine, the glossy bible of Great Britain's new media industry. Where, rumor has it, journalists work with open tins of freshly cooked insects sitting on their desks. Not content with revolutionizing the way we work, it now appears that the architects of the new economy want to try to revolutionize what we eat.
Christopher Edwards, an advertising executive at Revolution magazine, would like to see insects re-appraised as food items. He argues that they are high in protein and low in fat. But until attitudes to food fundamentally change he believes there will only be a niche market for edible bugs.
"I think the British are too squeamish," he explains. "It's just a case of educating people to try them. I scoffed at cricket. I saw this bug in my hand and thought 'Oh my God, I can't eat it!' It had all its legs and its antennae. They were all there. But I shoved it in and crunched it."
So how did it taste? "It was slightly crispy and soft on the inside. It was quite a bland taste," he says, adding that insect mini-buffets could go down well at parties. "I think you need to have dips with them - probably some garlic."
To reassure highly skeptical consumers, the Thai food Web site explains that all its bugs are carefully sterilized, preserved and spiced before being packed. But the news of the campaign to market insect snacks to the UK has received a mixed response from leading Thai restaurant chefs in this country.
While some of them privately admit that insects are actually quite tasty when cooked with pepper and a bit of seasoning, many believe that insect-eating will never become socially acceptable over here. They argue that a cooked Thai bug is about as welcome to the British palate as a cooked French frog.
Vidhaya Intharayaem, manager and head chef of the Bangkok restaurant in South Kensington says: "When I was a boy I would eat crickets. It was quite a common thing. But if you asked me to eat a cricket now I wouldn't because I have been living in this country for too long."
Despite claims that fried insects are nutritional, Angela Nilsen, food editor of the BBC's Good Food Magazine, says she will not be recommending bug snacks to her readers just yet. "I can't see them becoming everyday fare in Britain where we are still fairly conservative in our tastes," she explains. "We used to eat this kind of food hundreds of years ago. But we've become a lot more choosy."
She thinks the tastes of traditional UK snack eaters could change if they continue to travel and try out more unusual food. She has been to Thailand herself, so would she happily tuck into a plate of lightly fried locusts?
"I personally wouldn't eat insects as snacks. I live in the countryside and don't want to eat any of those things," she says with a noticeable shudder.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.

Weevil Waffles - Diane Renshaw
Let's clap a stopper on a misguided notion, now, lest the good Doctor be lurking somewhere on his laptop and find us in error.
Those bargemen are most certainly Coleoptera (beetles), and definitely not bugs (Hemiptera). Hemiptera (true bugs) have young that are similar to the adult, just smaller and wingless - cf.the dry-roasted leafhoppers in the Bug Blox™.
Here's a good weevil waffle recipe:
1 cup milk or buttermilk
2 eggs
3 tablespoons safflower oil or melted butter
2 tablespoons yogurt
2-3 tablespoons molasses
0.25 cup sunflower seeds (no shells)
Whirl these ingredients in a blender.
Sift the following into a mixing bowl:
1 cup flour (try half white, half whole wheat)**
0.25 cup wheat germ
1 teaspoon baking powder
pugil of salt (see Thirteen Gun Salute, p. 275, US paperback ed.)
Add wets to drys, stir briefly with a whisk; add milk or flour as needed to adjust consistency (should be like thick, heavy cream). Sprinkle hot waffle iron with poppy seeds immediately before adding batter.
serves 2 (?)
**The flour is the key ingredient - I've had consistently good luck with unrefrigerated whole wheat flour, especially from the bulk food bins of the funky local health food store.
Vegetarians may add Gummi worms™ in place of the special flour.
These waffles are best washed down (or better, preceded) with the daily grog ration, or better, a wee doodly of wine. Any subsequent griping of the guts will respond to a good blue pill or slime draught.
Enough flummery for now...