To follow the last post, here’s a photo-essay from the BBC on another useful insect, the “desert shrimp,” better known as the locust. Useful? Well, that may be overstating the case, but they are widely eaten in the Sahara, deep fried in vegetable oil. I have tried them. Not as bad as one might think.
Anyway, what I really wanted to alert you all to is that the latest Spore and New Agriculturalist are out. There are lots of interesting pieces, both brief and longer, but is it a coincidence that both issues focus on aspects of agriculture and health? Spore has a feature on “functional foods” here, things that provide disease prevention as well as nutrition. New Agriculturalist has number of articles on various different aspects of the topic here, plus other sources of information.
“Not as bad as one might think.” I’m startled, Luigi, by your parochialism. Why would you think they might be bad? Try explaining the concept of cheese to, say, a Chinese.
I’ve tried them too, and I think they are pretty yummy. The legs take a bit of getting used to — too crunchy by bar with no real flavour — but the bodies are good.
Mind you, almost anything deep-fried is pretty good.