Today in the car I listened to a progamme telling us we would soon be eating insects. It has been predicted that by 2050 the world’s population will have increased to nine billion, and the demand for food will grow with it. One of the things we will be worrying about in the future is food security, and we won't care what we eat, as long as we eat something. Much has been done behind the scenes to develop this idea. It's not just a notion - it has legs. In an article in the New Yorker Dana Goodyear quotes the man who first explored the idea of so much protein being freely available. " DeFoliart envisioned a place for edible insects as a luxury item. The larvae of the wax moth (Galleria mellonella) seemed to him to be poised to become the next escargot, which in the late eighties represented a three-hundred-million-dollar-a-year business in the United States. Given a choice, New York diners looking for adventure and willing to pay $22 for half a roasted free-range chicken accompanied by a large pile of shoestring potatoes might well prefer a smaller pile of Galleria at the same price." You see, it's all in the name; call it something nice and we'll all try it.
http://mailx.suffolkfoodie.co.uk/item/285-eating-insects.html#sigProId2633334975
It's only in Europe that we cringe at the idea, although in Sardinia there is the cheese riddled with maggots pictured here, called Casa Marzu. Bugs are a traditional food in many cultures across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and over 1,000 insects are known to be eaten in 80% of the world's nations. They include 235 species of butterflies and moths, 344 species of beetles and 313 species of ants, bees and wasps, as well as 239 species of grasshoppers, crickets and cockroaches, amongst others. Other commonly eaten insects are termites, cicadas and dragonflies. And we do eat them already, we just don't know about it - there are permissible levels in tinned sweetcorn, some shredded bits in fruit juice and the odd bug in frozen broccoli. Of course in the old days we would have had much less choice, John the Baptist is said to have survived on locusts and honey when he lived in the desert, and we would all eat a spider if it was life or death or I'm a Celebrity. But most of us have a long way to go. It needs to look right...we're not good at wings and eyes and legs, so we need it to be presentable, on lettuce and in breadcrumbs. But some people do have the recipes - cabbage, peas n'crickets anyone? It's just that the website they're on - girlmeetsbug.com, looks a bit like the old suffolkfoodie blog...
