Eating bugs isn’t such a revolting idea at some local restaurants. In fact, the establishments go to great troubles to serve up the creatures
Thanks to the remarkable success of the Survivor series, the eating of insects has entered the mainstream in a way few observers of the culinary scene might have expected.
There is a long tradition of bug eating very little of which is found in the United States. Indeed, the rest of the world eats so many bugs, that author Jerry Hopkins, in his remarkable (and remarkably illustrated) book “Strange Foods” (Tuttle, 1999), breaks down his section on insect eating into seven chapters: “Grasshoppers,” “Ants and Termites,” “Spiders and Scorpions,” “Beetles,” “Crickets and Cicadas,” “Butterflies and Moths” and “Flies.”
He observes that “of the more than 800,000 species described by entomologists, thousands play a role in the human diet…” And those entomologists don’t just give the consumption of bugs lip service (as it were). They put their bugs where their, ahem, mouths are.
Every year, the New York Entomological Society throws a gala insect banquet. A recent menu included such savories as crudit & #233;s with peppery delight mealworm dip, waxworm and mealworm California roll, cricket tempura, worm and corn fritters and for dessert, chocolate cricket torte.
Those of us who believe that we’ve managed to live an insect-free life are, of course, in for something of a surprise. It’s been estimated that the average human being inadvertently consumes more than a pound of bugs in a lifetime. This includes the flour beetles, weevils and other pests that are milled along with our grain; and a surprising number of insects that wind up in processed items like apple cider and applesauce.
The eating of insects is technically known as entomophagy. And not only have we all chewed on a critter at one time or another, we’ve done it rather happily, and quite healthily. Just consider: 100 grams of cricket contains 121 calories (versus 288 calories for ground beef), and 5.5 grams of fat (versus 21 grams for ground beef). Crickets are a good source of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, thiamin, riboflavin and niacin. They’re actually good for us. And here’s the twist, bunky they even taste pretty good. Heck, they’re no stranger looking than shrimp, lobster and crab. And they’re a lot less peculiar looking than snails. One of the great mysteries of our culinary history is why shrimp are a delicacy and locusts are a yuck.
All of which has, no doubt, left you salivating for a nice platter of mealworms en croute. Unfortunately, that isn’t served locally. But other bugs are. And not surprisingly, they’re offered at some of our most unusual restaurants.
Local outlets
Those who hunger for crickets served in the style of Oaxaca (where they’re sold like bags of peanuts at a Dodger game by street vendors in and around the Mercado), can find them offered (now and then) at the wonderful Oaxacan restaurant mini-chain called Guelaguetza in Koreatown and Palms. Along with unique Oaxacan dishes like clayudas (a pizza equivalent the size of a hubcap), and a wide variety of multi-hued mole sauces, Guelaguetza offers grasshoppers, fried with chiles, salted and limed, crunchy as potato chips, or more precisely as croutons, which they somewhat resemble in flavor and texture (imagine croutons with legs, or, alternately, don’t).
When it comes to bug eating, though, Guelaguetza is a one-trick pony. But when it comes to a panoply of edible insects, there’s nothing in town (and possibly nothing in America) quite like the Pan-Asian Typhoon Restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport.
Typhoon is a fine place to go for the cooking of China, Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the surrounding lands. It has a good following. But it’s also the place to go for crickets, ants, sea worms, scorpions … the list goes on, depending on what owner Brian Vidor can get his hands on.
The first insects that appeared on the menu at Typhoon were the crickets. Or to be more precise, the Taiwanese Stir-Fried Crickets. The ever-voluble Vidor said, “They have a crispy, nutty flavor. And they go well with beer. You just pop them in your mouth like peanuts.” Though they are Taiwanese in heritage, they’re not raised in Taiwan. Instead, Vidor has them shipped UPS (and what an interesting bill of lading that must be.) from the colorfully named Flucker Farms in Louisiana. He said, tongue in cheek, that he’s not quite sure of how many he’s had sent at any one time: “We don’t know what they weigh, because they hop off the scale too quickly.” (For the record, they’re stir-fried in oil with garlic, chile peppers and Asian basil.)
Following the success (or at least the notice) of crickets on his menu, Vidor added ants. They’re Changbai Mountain Ants, from the far north of China, above North Korea. “They’re considered to be the finest culinary ants in the world,” said Vidor, a point I feel totally unable to dispute. He pointed out that ants, which have a texture something like mushy caviar, are actually quite good for you, an excellent source of the B vitamins, along with D and E. I’m told they’re 42 percent protein, and supply eight essential amino acids. They used to be served as a sort of pate, flavored with soy.
These days, Vidor serves them dried, sprinkled on shoestring potatoes, which works a lot better. They’re not quite as antish, sprinkled on french fries.
No laughing matter
What’s intriguing about the bug dishes at Typhoon is how serious the kitchen takes them. Unlike the whimsical items at the Entomological Society, much effort has gone into flavoring these creepy crawlies. The white sea worms are fried Thai style, flavored with ginger, chili, peanuts and lime, with a tamarind dipping sauce. The scorpions (farmed in Northern Thailand) are deep-fried and served on shrimp toast. The fried bamboo caterpillars arrive in a crispy noodle nest, with a sweet and spicy dipping sauce. The caterpillars (“rot duan” in Thai, which means “train”) are described by Vidor as “awesome. All they eat is bamboo, so they have a wonderful flavor.”
An important point here is that all the insects served at Typhoon (and at Guelaguetza as well) are farmed; they’re raised to be eaten. Vidor said, “Bugs that have been exposed to Raid are not a good idea. We wouldn’t encourage people to try to duplicate our recipes with bugs they’ve collected from their backyards.”
What Typhoon serves is just the tip of the insectival iceberg. And it reminds me of the observation by Jonathan Swift that “he was a bold man who first swallowed an oyster.” The question is not so much one of why we’d want to eat an insect, as it is one of why we eat the creatures that we do eat. Eating a chicken isn’t all that much stranger than a grasshopper. It’s just that, to date, KFC has meant solely Kentucky Fried Chicken…and not Kentucky Fried Cricket. But then, anything is possible.
