By: Blonde One
Last weekend I spent the day at a conference for all of the leaders of a World Challenge expedition over the summer of 2015. It was a most excellent day where I met amazing people (such as the incredible expedition medic), learnt fascinating facts (such as how mules in Morocco are cared for) and was tempted by fabulous exhibits from around the world. I really was like a kid in a candy store: I wanted to speak to everyone, learn everything and fly around the world to see for myself how amazing the places were. I came home with my head buzzing with ideas, my heart full of excitement, my arms full of freebies and my pockets full of insects … yes, you read it right … my pockets were full of insects that were given out as little treats from around the world. Grubs from Africa and crickets from Ecuador for instance. I think the toffee from India might have been better, but who wants to settle for the easy option?
Memories come flooding back: in Japan caramelised grasshoppers followed by hundred-year-old eggs (turned black in the interim). Both christened for maximum macho appeal, both incredibly disappointing: the former mere straw, the latter blancmange. If we are what we eat I was, for an hour or so, something of a fraud.
The thought of these things is often worse than the actual taste. Having said that, I would struggle to eat the hundred-year-old eggs! You are clearly more macho than me!!!
I recently tried a grasshopper from Vietnam. Reminded me a bit if a pink wafer biscuit!!!
Hee – I think I’ll pass on the grubs, including the grasshoppers! A nice green Jelly-baby, now, – – –
Of course, the obvious issue with this, the one that we have all overlooked, is food miles. Maybe we should all be eating nutritious local insects instead. A ladybird for example or a delicious cabbage white caterpillar.
i can see it now – haggis flavoured chocolate-covered midges – maybe marginally better than having them get inside the mouth whilst one is eating porridge.
i read somewhere that we will all be eating insects some day soon as the earth finds current protein production methods unsupportable (and which give off copious amounts of methane, whereas insects don’t) –
spanish fly, anyone?
Blonde Two, how dare you suggest eating ladybird?!!!
Cockroach, anyone?