Would you like gravy with your grasshopper?
INSECTS: AN EDIBLE FIELD GUIDE by Stefan Gates (Ebury £9.99)
BEFORE you get all ‘eeurgh!’ about the idea of eating insects, remember that honey is, in fact, a kind of bee vomit. And that the red food colouring in everything from sausages to sweets is often crushed cochineal bugs.
If you’re eating them already, what’s the problem with a few more?
Stefan Gates argues that we should get used to the idea of crunching on creepy-crawlies, as the world cannot sustain its current levels of meat consumption. He runs us through the menu, with recipes for everything from moth pate to cicada florentines.
Midges, apparently, are ‘slightly nutty and a little musty’. The earthworm offers ‘the same sugary sensation you find in Jerusalem artichokes’, while the Colombian fat-arsed ant (yes, that’s what its Spanish name translates as) tastes like smoky bacon crisps.
Gates admits that many insects are an acquired taste, and much depends on how the fare is cooked. Beijing’s night market sells scorpions deep-fried on kebab sticks: ‘This way they have the texture of Twiglets and taste of old oil.’ Young men eat them to impress their dates.
Cooking techniques tend to concentrate on roasting and deep-frying, though you can get mealworm ice-cream in San Francisco and cockchafer soup in France. Woodlice, we are told, make ‘an excellent substitute for shrimps in a prawn cocktail’. You might want to warn your dinner guests first.
The word ‘insect’ comes from the Latin for ‘ cut into sections’, referring to the construction of their bodies.
During World War II, Germany’s V1 rocket came to be known as the ‘doodlebug’ because that’s a nickname for the cockchafer, which makes the same buzzing sound as the rocket. (Perhaps that’s why the French like turning them into soup.)
The much smaller dung beetle is the only creature other than mankind that’s known to orient itself using the Milky Way.
There are references in the Bible to eating locusts and crickets, and these days two billion people around the world consume insects regularly.
The long-horned grasshopper is a delicacy in Uganda, where it was traditionally harvested by women in exchange for a new dress from their husbands. In China, silkworm pupae is taken to combat flatulence.
The most astonishing revelation, however, concerns the water boatman. This little marvel can sing with its penis. It rubs said part against its abdomen, thereby producing a sound.
Such is the volume level that the insect ranks as the loudest creature in the world relative to its size.
Everyone needs a hobby.