Loch Awe hotel’s burgers put midges on the menu

A hotel near Loch Awe could soon be selling a burger coated in midges after joking about it online, writes David McPhee.

David Keat, owner of the Brander Lodge Hotel, revealed his plan on social media after collecting millions of the ‘little beggars’.

He said: ‘Every summer we’re absolutely overrun and this season they’re as menacing as ever. We’ve installed several midge machines here on site and every few days we have to empty them, which got me thinking: all sorts of other insects and bugs are crawling onto menus all over the world, so there’s no reason why the humble midge should be excluded.

‘If you can’t beat ’em, eat ’em.’ Speaking to The Oban Times, David said: ‘It all started as a gimmick, now it’s grown arms and legs.’

He has since created the unique burger and sent it to Argyll and Bute Council’s environmental health department to be tested.

The idea originated from the Brander’s vegan burger, incorporating sweet potato, local nettles, herbs, and other vegetation picked from the hotel’s garden.

Basically David wanted to take the midges habitat and camouflage away: ‘The male midges eat greens, while the females eat blood,’ he said. ‘The males don’t bite people.’

His vegan burger is called the Brander Awe Mighty Midge Fodder Burger, and ‘protein-filled midges themselves are the carnivore optional extra’.

However, David said: ‘At the moment it’s just a joke, but if they are consumable and someone really wants one, we would make it for them.

‘We just need to get it tested. [environmental health] don’t have any objection, they just wanted to make sure it is free of contamination.’

After eating a mouthful of midges, the owner added: ‘They don’t have much of a taste.’

Since he started collecting midges, which he freezes in empty mayonnaise tubs, David said: ‘It’s getting more and more tolerable – there were millions of them before.’