House Fly Pupae: Surprisingly Good

About two weeks ago I offered four folks from RISD a special banquet. This was in a private home and the participants had a great time. I offered about a dozen varieties of insects, some of which I'd never served before. There was the impressive-yet-usual:

Giant Water Bugs [Lethocerus indicus, which for some reason I've barely mentioned in this blog]. I call them 'usual' because they're one of the insects more-or-less easily available in Asian markets in Providence. Though I've seen them served whole-fried in Thailand (I found myself unable to masticate them much at all, I guess my mouth is too tender), I serve them filleted; taking out the muscle tissue in the thorax. Most people are pretty blown away by the taste of it, but some folks just purely hate it.


and the unusual:
Thorny Stick Insects [Eurycantha horridum], which unfortunately are not all that good after all. Not much to eat on them, but they're much appreciated and enjoyed in Papua New Guinea, where they're stuck on a stick and roasted over the fire.


And there was one item that I myself had never tried: house fly pupae.

I'd gotten them last fall, through the kindness of folks at Cornell's Ag department -- thanks again, Allie!! I can admit now that I had a bit of a hang up about trying them, which had surprised and disappointed me. After all, I was supposed to be beyond having such issues. The problem I had was that when I picked them up in the insectary, I smelled what they'd been eating -- a mixture of milk and really rich calf feed, I think -- and saw the dried bits of that mixture among the pupae; I didn't enjoy the prospect of separating them.

Between the smell and the prospect of having to sort through the pupae themselves [the tiny red pills] and fish out the bits of their food [the vague nuggets], I wasn't eager. But at last I realized the simple solution there in front of me all along. If I would just parboil the pupae, as I did the crickets as part of their processing, the nuggets would melt away; such smell as there might be would dissipate as well; and then I could pan-fry the pupae and serve.

And it worked fine! Unfortunately I was too distracted to get an image of the final result, so once again my patient readers will have to take my word for it -- until such time, at least, as they can sample such cuisine for themselves. The pupae have a little bit of crunch from the very thin shells. The flavor is rich with a hint of iron, sort of like blood pudding. All other things being equal (meaning, if the idea of it wasn't particularly disgusting to so many people) I think there could be great potential for mass-rearing them and processing the pupae into either a flour or "hamburger helper" kind of protein ingredient.

I'm very happy to have gotten over my hang-up about this food. As always, I'm not describing all of this to gross anyone out. It's a food like any other, it wasn't raised on dead meat or on the side of the road, and therefore it's just like any other kind of entomophagy: a matter of triumphing over that bad ol' cultural conditioning.

Cool new acquisition: Nsenene!

A couple days ago I drove about an hour and bought nine bags of African grasshoppers.
I’d learned in October that a Ugandan community gets a shipment of grasshoppers in December. I knew that I'd want some of them, but I didn’t want to drive all that way for nothing. Since I’d lost the business card from my first visit, it was time for some internet research to find the right number to confirm that the product was available. As usual the calls were circuitous, amusing, and ultimately successful.

I was told the price-per-bag but not the size or weight of a bag; this made the information meaningless. I wondered what the unit price, per-pound or kilo, would be. I figured that since the immigrant community was probably not very wealthy, the item would not be very expensive. Yet the product arrived only once or twice a year, and I was pretty sure that it had a lot of sentimental value as a taste of the homeland.

I arrived in the city and achieved my goal within 15 minutes. The bags were disappointingly small. I spent roughly the sum I'd planned to, but the amount of product was miniscule. I’m not sharing how much I spent, since it’s already easy for people to decide that I’m crazy. Some would say I’m making a big deal out of a modest amount of money, while others would be amazed at how much I spent. The little bags make a pleasant pile on the kitchen table.

Don’t they look like shrimp?

The important part is to find out what insects taste like, and in the bigger picture to understand how people can feed themselves within harmony with nature. I’m getting a taste of a market in Kampala. I’m increasing my stock-in-trade.

They’re called Nsenene, which I suspect is onomatopoeic in origin. Since pronunciation counts: say “NnnnnnSEH-neh-nay.” The word is spoken quickly, as though the syllables are running out of your mouth.

Googling the name, I found several helpful sites, mostly blogs of those who’d had Ugandan experiences. All described how the insects are caught and processed: legs and wings are removed. Few of the sites included a binomial, and most that did listed Ruspolia nitidula. I was/am curious to know if there's something similar here in the U.S.. When I checked Bugguide I found the genus Neoconocephalus, which features several very similar looking species. I figured out two useful things: first, nsenene are katydids, not grasshoppers. This is good to know. Second, it's the mass movements of nsenene that makes for relatively easy harvesting during the season; this is not the case for the American version of this kind of katydid. But there's always the Mormon cricket, a species of large, flightless katydid in the American West. They were routinely mass-harvested by American Indians. But since nsenene are so tasty, I'm wondering if they -- or something just like them -- could be farmed...

When I cooked a few [or simply warmed them, actually, on aluminum foil in the toaster-oven] they turned a reddish golden-brown.

Two friends had come by and were up for a tasting, though they were a bit hesitant:

Of course I had one myself, though I didn't get around to shooting that. All of us proclaimed them very tasty indeed. They’re surprisingly buttery on their own, and taste like a cross between chicken, shrimp, and croutons.

And there’s some other intriguing developments [which as you loyal and patient readers will know by now is nothing new.]

I’m speaking with the great and noble Steven of Louisiana about the potential for starting an insect-rearing facility in his area.
I’ve contacted a researcher in stinkbug propagation, and it might be possible for me to get a supply of these insects.
I’m hard at work on the reprinting of the Food Insects Newsletter. Right now I’m constructing the various indices, which is less fun than when I'd started.

Bread and Vodka (and new friends)

Among the several new projects at SLS are two that have me working with new colleagues!

The first is insect flour. I'd worked with it a few years ago and wanted to do more with it. This speaks to the question of, "is it okay to transform the insect as part of processing it into food, or is that 'selling out?'" For a while I was against 'hiding' the bugs, but I've come to realize that if people are aware and content to benefit nutritionally, environmentally, etc from the experience of eating insects, that's what matters. Besides, it's good to meet people half-way. If eating a slice of toast (ground-up insect and all) is easier than chomping on an entire insect body, then why not help the people out in that regard?

The process is simple: take your thawed crickets out and dry/toast them in the oven. Then grind into flour.



A couple weeks ago I dropped off the flour at Liberty Elm Diner at 777 Elmwood Avenue in the glorious city of Providence. Liberty Elm is a relatively new establishment and they're multo cool -- not just because they're willing to bake with insect flour. Their food is great, they've got live music, and they're friendly and wiki-enabled. You can learn more about them at

http://www.myspace.com/libertyelm

Here's the flour and what we made with it.

In fact the diner's baker made the wheat-flour/potato bread both with and without the cricket flour, for comparison's sake. The dark one contains the cricket flour; it was also quite a bit denser. I'm mildly embarrassed to say that I don't yet know exactly how she worked that recipe -- how much flour was called for, and how much cricket flour was used, and did the latter simply replace the usual flour or was added to? Questions like these need answering, but the more important details are that the cricket rolls were very tasty, with a sort of parmesan cheese taste to them; AND that even though the rolls were not officially on the menu, several people ordered and paid for them! Most cool. With a little more effort I could help Providence reach the forefront of entomophagic cities in this country...

The other project: BOOZE!

I am fortunate enough to be in contact with the illustrious Baron Ambrosia, who creates some pretty amazing stuff in NYC. He's classy, enthusiastic, and he excells at staying presposterous. You can get a taste -- nay, a banquet! -- at http://www.underbellynyc.com/season1/

I have no images yet, just this link to the episodes of Underbelly. As can be seen upon a perusal thereof, each of the episodes concludes with the proclamation, "Stay Preposterous!!" From what I can tell he's all about the high life, and to that end he's got some very interesting ideas about capturing the essence of insects [particularly the giant water bugs, for example] in distilled spirits such as vodka. This is just the kind of thing I want to work with, since it's another way of making the concept of entomophagy a viable option. But in terms of the Baron himself, there is a good deal more going on.

Granted, at first blush it looks like he's only playing around, there's a serious message too. The Baron has filmed not only in the gritty 'first-world' of The Bronx, but in Liberia and Sierra Leone as well. He and his crew plan to visit Somalia and Chechnya in the coming year. When I asked him about his predilection for travelling to places wherein he's likely to have his ass shot off, he said something like, "The Baron loves the world. I want to do things the other shows won't do, which is to show how beautiful people really are." Granted this was a telephone conversation, so I can't claim to quote verbatim, but the gist is that in the service of humanity there is no danger to fear. I was moved. And I look forward to working with him.

Thailand II

The first insects I had eaten were in the evening market on Sunday, the first day I'd gotten into CM. The mixed bag was about 60 cents U.S. and contained six kinds of insect. They were all pretty good, but a few kinds were delicious.

I'd bought them at this table; there was only one such vendor at the market that late afternoon.



I'm aware that pictures like this are kind of a tacky standard subject for foreign tourists, and I felt a little strange shooting away like this, just as if I was some gawker. But I tried each kind of insect and then bought a second bag for later, and some of these were very tasty. For my money, the best of all were the BIG grasshoppers.


The conference,

Edible Forest Insects: Humans Bite Back

took place on a Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday. Presentations took up the first day, and that evening there was a banquet of sorts. The main courses were beef, pork, chicken, and fish; before these dishes were many insects. I tried all of them.

The Bamboo Caterpillars

and grasshoppers were among the best. Unlike most of the other conference-attendees, I tried all of the insects on offer, though several of them weren't fantastic:

Of these, the ones in the lower right quadrant -- the bedraggled sphinx moth, the rhinoceros beetle, and the longhorn beetle cut off by the edge of the image -- were pretty bad. The Giant Water Bug also was disappointing. But the large crickets (genus Brachytrupes) in the upper right area, and the house crickets on the left side of the plate, were quite good, as were the two varieties specified already. After finishing the great majority of this plate I will admit that I was ready for the vertebrate selections that evening.

The second day consisted of a driving tour full of stops related to the development of insects in one application or another, but mostly as foods. We went to an insect zoo; a cricket farm; a bee farm; and another market -- where I sampled some deep-fried scorpion.

One of the 39 cricket pits housed in an unwalled area the size of a four-car garage -- a concrete circle a meter across and half as high. It's a self-contained cricket utopia (except for the part about being harvested as food, but then the crickets themselves never know about that part). There's plenty of hiding places, food [chicken feed], and water [two plastic water-bottles laid on their sides, with paper towels out of the holes punched to let the capillary action draw the moisture up for the insects to drink -- brilliant in its simplicity!] There's even a handy laying-tray with the right kind of substrate: coconut husks and potting soil. The eggs can hatch in a new pit and thereby start off the next generation. Seven weeks later, harvest time.

The scorpion (Heterometrus spinifer, looks a lot like the emperor scorpion that's a somewhat-popular pet choice among certain circles here in the U.S.) didn't have a lot of real flavor, but the texture of the exoskeleton was unique, and a fairly pleasant eating experience. But it was hardly as much fun to eat as some already mentioned items.

The last day included some papers (including mine, which went pretty well) and group meetings.

Afterward I hit the night-markets, as I'd done several times by then. The next two days were spent with new friends on a driving tour -- we drove Northwest-ish from Chiang Mai towards Myanmar, and stayed at the Cave Lodge. It was amazing: a large cave with thorough tours, a five-minute walk from the Lodge.


Best of all: after the tour, we lay ourselves on the dry riverbed and watched the hundreds of thousands of cave swifts speeding through the evening air, back to their perches in the cave. Spectacular!! The shots I took didn't do them justice, but a charming Montrealean named Madga sent me some video she had shot. If anyone just has to see it, let me know and I'll try to send it to you.

Too soon I had to return to Chiang Mai and fly home, to Bangkok, where I wasn't able to see a thing because I didn't plan it into this trip; then Tokyo, where I had sushi in the airport; and back to Chicago, Boston, then home at last to modest, cozy Providence. I'm looking forward to my next trip to Thailand; we'll have to see how soon I'll be able to go.

Food for Thought: An impressive success

This was a big event for SLS. I was in the company of some of the best-known restaurants in Providence – a town where people like their restaurants. The setting (the newly-expanded Botanical Gardens at Roger Williams Park) was lovely, and the guests seemingly better-heeled than myself. I still hope to get some pictures of the actual event; but first, a couple images of the preparations.






The most labor-intensive prep was ‘filleting’ the Giant Water Bugs. We [I got a lot of help from the staff and students at the Genesis Center) did 175 of them. I thought a good deal about what the professional crab-pickers did with those world-famous Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs.











This is the empty square. The Six-and-five-eighths ounces of empty weight is equivalent to 188g.

Later, filled with the meat of the 175 insects, the one-pound-and-three ounces equaled 540g. Close perusal will reveal two kinds of tissue; the darker and more-square pieces are from the thorax of the animals, and might just correspond to pectoral muscle(?). The lighter-colored stuff is more connective rather than central. If that makes any sense. Seeing the inside of the insect would be helpful; I'll try to get some good macro shots of that this winter.

Here are the shells. The weight was 2 pounds and 11 oz. I don’t have the metric equivalent but it doesn’t really matter since this mound does not represent all 175 of the insects; some were discarded and could not be retrieved. I tried to boil the shells so as to get a stock but they proved far too salty to work with.



And Here Is The Finished Product!:










[Photo by David Winthrop]

The first name we gave it -- we being myself and Chef Branden Lewis of the Genesis Center, who was wonderful to collaborate with -- was Sour Candy Canape. This name reflected the fact that the bug's meat is reminiscent of sour candy, especially for example Jolly Rancher. But this first name morphed into WaterBugaMelon, since Branden wanted to be more clear about the fact that the dish contained insect protein material.

Traditionally, some people salt their watermelon in the summer. The saltiness-yet-fruitiness of the meat paired well with the fruits. The cocktail umbrella is for decoration only.

Then there were the crickets, which were good also although the planned dish didn't quite get off the ground. The intention was to 'honey-roast' them and serve with popcorn. We were to call it "Popcrick," and maybe next October we'll get it nailed down. Here they are on the roasting pan

and yeah, they were tasty; the sugar didn't overwhelm the nuttiness of the crickets themselves. But we had some problems with the popcorn maker, and in the end I'll need a real honey roaster, which I've seen at carnivals and suchlife venues but I haven't found something affordable that could fit the need.

I was too busy that evening to take pictures of the diners, but I may be able to track down some images one of these days. My tables were quite busy, though, and the even raised my company profile here in Providence, as well as started me off with a really nice collaboration with The Genesis Center, which is a great place.

I'll be serving the bugs at the next Food For Thought in October 2008.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT (and some other subjects)

My life has been too hectified for me to have covered this earlier: I'm very proud and happy to be involved in The Genesis Center's event on October 25th at the relatively-newly-expanded Botanical Center at Roger Williams Park. It looks pretty spectacular -- more than 25 of Providence's best restaurants (and ours is a city known for its food) and me. The cuisines will reflect the great diversity of the city, and that's part of the origin of the name: Food For Thought. This will mark the 11th year of the event; more information here.

I plan to have some pictures of the event: as it happens I've got three events before it coming up: Syracuse in a few days -- the 29th -- and then Central Square, Cambridge, on the 13th, and then Oak Knoll Audubon Center's Spooktacular on the 20th.

What Gourmet Insect Food Looks Like

In addition to getting the exotic bugs -- as I've mentioned several times by now -- the other main push this summer is to develop my cooking skills. I've mentioned elsewhere that people are often surprised that insects don't taste all that bad, and that that reaction is no longer satisfactory to me. Therefore it's time for me to finally develop my own cooking skills and make the insects shine.

And there are precedents models out there. Zack Lemann (last name is pronounced as 'Lemon,' by the way) is one of those few well-known insect chefs around. He's out of New Orleans and is currently orchestrating a venue at which regular insect-cooking demonstrations will be taking place. This is pretty amazing stuff. These are some of his culinary creations.


First is f-ANT-assticcrackers. The key ingredient is "Hormigas Culonas," the Leaf-Cutter Ant Queens. These were harvested in Colombia.


The Grasshopper Gumbo. These are lubber grasshoppers; they're quite large, and there's a big question about them.






Odonate Hors D'Ouerves. These are tempura-fried dragonflies on mushroom slices.




The Split Pea Whole Hopper Soup

Recently I was able to glean a few things from a chef at a party thrown by an Entomological Society. By and large this was a regular summer shindig: there were the traditional expected foods --



Grilled chicken; salmon; hamburgers and hot dogs. A token ear of corn.

And there was a variety of cooked insects:


One might say that these were "grilled," but in my slowly growing sense of clue regarding cooking I'd guess they were more steamed on the grill. While no liquid had been added, the convection from the coals never got through the foil, which means that no grilling was going on.

And how were these insects? Not so good. Too damp. The Giant Hissing Cockroaches were easily the worst, in fact they were inedible as a result of the whole 'juices trapped in the bug's body' reality. Really roasting them would likely be better, the more so after either ventilating the insect or even removing the gut.

The worst part was that the insects were basically wasted, because few people wanted to try them. I had quite a bit, but it looked hopeless.

Then in stepped Steven, who's a real chef. He was curious about insect cookery, and he showed me the best way to fry insects.

Here he is, keeping close watch over the crickets.




And a shot of the silkworm pupae that followed:




Worth noting: the netted-scoop-tool to the left of the pan is known as a 'spider.' That's amusing.

This was the first chance I've had to learn and prepare for the future. Making insects into haute cuisine makes me wish I had some real training.

Basics Part 2: Tasters

My programs have been full of people who had to wait their turn to eat insects, and since we can't have you doubting me on that here's a more-or-less random gallery of tasters trying dishes at events from the last year or so.

Here's the scene at the Newark Museum's BugMania2. I was serving at the far tent.






This is Sarah, who really did enjoy her insects. I'm pretty sure that her grimace came from the fact that the cicada (barely visible between her teeth) was a little chewier than she'd expected.







One might ask whether images like this are good for the cause, given what an ordeal it looks like for her. But this may just be the face of someone readjusting her ideas about food, and getting used to a new concept -- after all, the vast majority of participants have never before deliberately eaten an insect -- one that, a week before or even 30 minutes before, seemed repulsive. So that's great progress then.



Besides, this blog is about what it's like to operate an edible insect company; therefore I'm not interested in pretending as though there won't be difficulties along the way. I'll blog the good and the not-so-perfect, like the resistance that inevitably comes..... Though Sarah was a great sport.


Visting with students in the Boston area.






Both Mom and Son tasted the crickets and/or cicadas; that day there were several kids -- and some adults -- who asked for seconds. I'm pretty sure he was one of them.










I never got this guy's name, but just look at that facial expression! He knew how to enjoy a good bug.









And once more: the look of YUM.