My first ever insect meal went surprisingly well last night. It was the only thing that went well since last night's downpour ended my fire and seeped into my tent.
Anyway, what I did with the crickets & locusts, about 2 dozen of them, was to first drop them into my canteen cup which was half full of boiling water and a nice dash of Old Bay seasoning. I let them simmer in that for 2 minutes then removed them from the water and set them on a wooden board. From there I removed the wings, legs, heads and the long things in their ass ends(sex organs, probably) < OK, I know the jokes are on their way, lol.
It was actually not hard to do, just some quick little plucks to each cricket. Most had molted and their shells were quite soft. What was left from each cricket was a body segment about the size of a pistachio nut minus it's shell.
The whole operation kinda reminded me off cleaning Blue claw crabs, but much smaller. I think the Old Bay and the locusts turning red helped me make that palatable food association. I ended up cooking them in my mini skillet with a little zucchini sliced thin. No other seasonings added.
So how do they taste? The crickets did not taste bad at all. Their taste is kind of like a mild flavored seafood but with a pronounced kind of earthy and gamey aftertaste. The texture reminded me of shrimp or crab.
The locusts were not worth the trouble, good thing I had only a few of them. They lacked taste and were to crunchy for my liking, they were like crunching on flavorless shrimp shells. I had a few crickets who had not molted and they were not that crunchy. Maybe the bigger locusts, which I lacked a net to catch would have been better.
I think I'll continue to experiment with these bug meals, at least so when the time comes that they are the only option, it will be second nature to me just the same as eating squirrels or anything else.
I think I will steer clear of the earthworms though, for a few reasons.
The soil badly needs them, and they ingest all kinds of bad things dumped into our soils.
Cicadas I think I will also forgo, 17 years is a long time to accumulate environmental toxins!
Crickets on the other hand have a short life span thus less time to accumulate environmental toxins.
