The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook, Revised: 40 Ways to Cook Crickets, Grasshoppers, Ants, Water Bugs, Spiders, Centipedes, and Their Kin

203 Pages·2013·2.96 MB·English

by  David George Gordon

Copyright © 1998, 2013 by David George Gordon
Photographs copyright © 2013 by Chugrad McAndrews
Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Karen Luke Fildes
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com
Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
A previous edition was published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, in 1998.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60774-437-5
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60774-436-8
Author Photograph by Lila Higgins
Food and prop styling by Anne Treanor Miska
v3.1
DEDICATION
To my brother, Stuart, who first showed me
that gross can be good, and to Drew and Joe,
for showing me just how good it could be
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Embracing Entomophagy
PART ONE
Don’t Worry, Be Hoppy: Nine Culinary Leaps of Faith, Using Crickets,
Grasshoppers, and Their Kin
Chapter 1: Cooking with Crickets
Niblets and Cricklets
Orthopteran Orzo
Chirpy Chex Party Mix
Crispy Crickets
Cricket Seasoning à la Vij’s
Bugs in a Rug
Chocolate Cricket Torte
Chapter 2: Grilled Grasshoppers, Creamed Katydids, and Locusts
Lovingly Prepared
Cream of Katydid Soup
Oaxacan Whoppers
St. John’s Bread
Sheesh! Kabobs
Really Hoppin’ John
Chapulines con Chocolate Fondue
PART TWO
Togetherness: A Selection of Social Insects for Special Occasions
Chapter 3: Tantalizing Termites (The Other White Meat)
Curried Termite Stew
Termite Treats
Chapter 4: Beginning with Bees
Glory Bee
Three Bee Salad
Bee’s Knees
Chapter 5: Ants On (and In) the House
Ant Jemima’s Buckwheat-Bug Griddlecakes
Amaretto Honeypots
Ants in Pants
Pear Salad with Chiangbai Ants
PART THREE
Who’s Buggin’ Whom? Nine Ways to Turn the Tables on Household and Garden
Pests
Chapter 6: Preparing Pantry Pests
Cockroach à la King
Larval Latkes (a.k.a. Grubsteaks)
Chapter 7: Garden Grazers Alfresco
Wasabi Wax Worms
Superworm Tempura with Plum Dipping Sauce
Fried Green Tomato Hornworms
Piz-zz-zz-za
Pest-o
Alpha-Bait Soup
White Chocolate and Wax Worm Cookies
PART FOUR
Side Orders: A Smorgasbord of Treats from Assorted Arthropod Taxa
Chapter 8: Spineless Delights
Giant Water Bug on Watercress
Watermelon and Water Bug Surprise
Sweet and Sour Silkworm
Ample Drumsticks
Spin-akopita
Sky Prawn
Odonate Hors d’Oeuvres
Scorpion Scaloppine
Party Pupae
Deep-Fried Tarantula Spider
Resources
About the Author
Index
THE BUTTERFLY’S BALL AND THE GRASSHOPPER’S
FEAST
Come, take up your hats, and away let us haste
To the Butterfly’s ball and the Grasshopper’s feast;
The trumpeter Gad-fly has summon’d the crew,
And the revels are now only waiting for you.
On the smooth-shaved grass by the side of the wood,
Beneath a broad oak that for ages has stood,
See the children of the earth, and tenants of air,
For an evening’s amusement together repair.
And there came the Beetle, so blind and so black,
Who carried the Emmet, his friend, on his back;
And there came the Gnat, and the Dragonfly too,
And all their relations, green, orange, and blue.
And there came the Moth with her plumage of down,
And the Hornet with jacket of yellow and brown,
Who with him the Wasp, his companion, did bring;
They promised that evening to lay by their sting.
Then the sly little Dormouse peep’d out of his hole,
And led to the feast his blind cousin the Mole;
And the Snail, with his horns peeping out of his shell,
Came fatigued with the distance, the length of an ell.
A mushroom the table, and on it were spread
A Water-dock-leaf, which their table-cloth made;
The viands were various, to each of their taste,
And the Bee brought the honey to sweeten the feast.
With steps more majestic the Snail did advance,
And he promised the gazers a minuet dance;
But they all laughed so loudly he pulled in his head,
And went in his own little chamber to bed.
Then, as the evening gave way to the shadows of night,
Their watchman, the Glow-worm, came out with his light:
So home let us hasten, while yet we can see,
For no watchman is waiting for you or for me.
—William Roscoe (1753–1831)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the original Eat-a-Bug Cookbook, I thanked the many people who helped me,
directly or indirectly, in shaping the thirty-three recipes in that book. And here I
am again, fifteen years later, thanking my previous team of able bug suppliers,
accomplished chefs, adventurous taste testers, assiduous editors and publishers,
and authoritative arthropod lovers for their assistance. They are Mariah Bear,
Paul Boyer, Sharon Collman, Lisa Darmo, Florence Dunkel, Don Ehlen, Joe
Euro, T-Joe Frank, John Gautreaux, Zack Lemman, David Maxfield, Larry
Peterman, Jane Peterson, Braiden Rex-Johnson, Robin Roche, Kristin, Otto,
Anna, and John Smith, Louis Sorkin, Sally Sprenger, Scott Stenjem, Barney
Tomberlin, and Phil Wood.
Help with this revised and updated edition came from another batch of close
friends and associates, freethinkers who share my belief that insects are the food
of the future, good for the environment and good for us all. This second group
includes Mark Berman, Rena Chen, Mark Dennis, Meeru Dhalwala, Aaron
Dossey, Art Evans, Dave Gracer, Dianne Guilfoyle, Harman Johar, Brent Karner,
Steve Kutcher, Paul Landkamer, Daniella Martin, Monica Martinez, Leonard
Meuse, Julieta Ramos-Elorduy, Marianne Shockley, Renzo Tomlinson, Ger van
der Wal, and Rosanna Yau. I thank them for their helpful advice and heartfelt
encouragement.
A final outpouring of gratitude goes to those who helped shape the work you
now hold in your hands. They include Colleen Cain (book designer), Elizabeth
Stromberg (art director), Emily Timberlake (editor), and Aaron Wehner
(publisher), and I am indebted to them all. I’m also grateful to photographer
Chugrad McAndrews, food stylist Anne Treanor Miska, and my literary agent
and longtime friend, Anne Depue.
I am forever appreciative of my beloved bride, Karen Luke Fildes, who
contributed the illustrations in this edition and has been extremely supportive of
my trip in so many ways. And I applaud my chidren for putting up with me.
Bug appétit!