The culinary world is a strange place. I don’t mean the history of the human diet, because humans have eaten some pretty interesting things over the years and continue to do so (garbage plates anyone?). I mean the trends in “haute cuisine” that arise, they can be very strange indeed.
Many countries in the world have long included bugs and larvae on their menus: Japan, Nigeria, Thailand… but now they are crawling up on menus in the United States as “trendy” cuisine. PBS NewsHour reported on a restaurant in San Francisco called Mosto that serves a variety of gourmet bugs.
Mosto’s brave chef, Monica Martinez, serves mealworms and crickets to a clientele eager to try something new. Martinez started selling her insect-Hispanic fare out of a food truck at San Francisco’s Street Food Festival and quickly sold all of her dishes. She grows mealworms at her home, keeping them on a strict organic diet of course. Martinez freezes them to kill them, then bakes them and uses them in her dishes.
Eating bugs, or entomophagy, as I mentioned before is popular in many parts of the world, particularly in developing countries. Many argue that eating insects in many ways is better for both humans and the environment than eating meat. There is less fat in insects than in meat but just as much protein. Additionally, the way animals are raised today contributes heavily to global warming and environmental damage. Scientists say that eating food sources that are further away evolutionally means less risk of disease. Because animals like pigs and cows are closer to humans evolution-wise there is more of a risk of diseases like Mad Cow and other Prion Diseases. With insects, this risk diminishes greatly.
So am I ready to fry up some crickets I find in my backyard at my next barbeque? I’m not completely sure, but the next time I’m in San Francisco I will stop by Mosto.
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