The Case For Eating Bugs, Ctd

Hal Hudson envisions how bug eating could become more popular:

Paul Rozin, who studies the psychology of disgust at the University of Pennsylvania, says new and unusual foods tend to make their way into popular culture from the top down, starting with those who can afford to dine in expensive, adventurous restaurants.

Sushi is one example of this trend. The idea of eating raw fish was largely foreign to people in the US before the 1960s, but now sushi restaurants can be found almost anywhere. “Sushi originally started with Japanese businessmen in Los Angeles. It was just a local ethnic thing for them, but then they would invite their American counterparts,” says Rozin. “It’s true of most unusual cuisine – people who are wealthy and adventurous do something, and then it becomes trendy.”

Hudson details some efforts to make insects more flavorful:

Chefs around the world are hard at work experimenting with insects to make new and appetizing foods. Nordic Food Lab – a non-profit spun out from Danish restaurant Noma – began a project to make insects delicious to the Western palate in May last year. Their chefs believe that making insects tasty could spark a wave of interest in entomophagy (see “Taste test“).

Nurdin Topham, now head chef at Nur in Hong Kong, was involved in the work, and noticed that the flavor of the insects changed depending on what they had been fed. “The diets that the insects were fed made quite a significant difference to the quality, taste and freshness, in the same way as shellfish or prawns,” he says. “There was a definite difference.”

Indeed, Tiny Farms in Austin, Texas, is already doing this. It uses a process called gut loading – in which crickets are fed certain flavored or nutrient-rich foods just before they are killed – to rear crickets that taste like honey and apples, or that are high in vitamin C.

Previous Dish on entomophagy here.

(Photo: Salted crickets mashed with huitlacoche and wrapped in homemade tostadas over tomatillo sauce, finished with pomegranate seeds. By Flickr user Carnaval King 08)