Jeff Eats Crickets

I ordered some bugs to eat from this UK-based company called Edible Unique. They came shipped in a white envelope, to my office in Shanghai. So many bugs to choose from! We went down to our favorite spot on the Bund, our friend Jeff's dive bar I Love Shanghai [recently moved to new location]. Let him decide. Here's how it went...



Jeff made a blind choice for the crickets. Then, we ate them...



These were "lemongrass giant crickets with Thai spices." Good on salads. Be careful to remove the wings and legs as they're a bit sharp. Nice nutty flavor. Crunchy crickets!

(BTW, Jeff's from Seattle, and his hair isn't normally like that -- it was "wig" night at his bar).

* I'm trying to get more videos posted, but it's a real challenge from China, as Youtube is often blocked or running too slow. Even now, I can't hear the sound from these videos -- leave a comment if you have trouble viewing them.

Iran's Big Ostrich Sandwich

We're happy to see that everyone's gone green these days. Can't open any magazine or newspaper these days without articles and adverts pimping green this and green that. One of the aspects of all this greenness that is often over-looked is in food production. Meats like beef and pork and chicken can be inefficient and environmentally nasty. A lot of people, my former self included, turn to a vegetarian diet, in the name of eco-friendliness. But eating soy 3 meals a day isn't good for you and it's a really dull way to live.



There is a still small but growing interest in "alternative meats" -- from insects to kangaroo meat. Ostrich meat seems to be working, growing in popularity in places like Europe, Australia and China. Ostrich production claims to be more environmentally friendly, for a number of reasons, but it's also praised for having a lot less fat than beef or chicken. That's good news for fat people. One source claims they have the "best feed to weight gain ratio of any land animal in the world" [link].

So, last week in Iran, they made this big ostrich sandwich -- intended to be the world's largest sandwich, to get the Guinness World Record and promote the big bird's benefits. But, people ate the damn thing before they even finished making it!

I think ostriches are pretty cute. Have you ever had a staring contest with one? They almost spook me out -- about my height (or even taller) and same size eyes, and they can really put on a good stare.

Anyway, all this is making me hungry. There's a hot pot place around the corner that serves ostrich meat. I'm going.

Man Eats Centipedes to Survive

This week, a man from Oregon, which is somewhere in California, I think, broke his ankle while mountain climbing, and was missing for several days. He survived by eating centipedes! And water from creeks.


Photo from University of Nebraska

That's totally awesome. I love to hear nature survival stories like that. I have a few of my own, which I'll get around to sharing one of these days. Like the time we got attacked by bears -- twice -- on the way up Mount Whitney (that's in California, I'm sure).

But I thought centipedes were poisonous ... Hmm. Did a search. The common North American ones (North America is in California, I'm pretty sure) are mostly harmless. Some of them might give you a little sting but they're generally not killers. I wanna ask this guy if he ate them live, or killed them first.

I was at Ta Prohm, the Angkor Wat area temple in Cambodia that was left "as is" when the French (re)-discovered it. The story is that it's been left as it was found and not renovated. I had my hand resting on a stone wall to steady myself for a photo, when I noticed, to my dismay, a bit of re-bar in the wall. Re-bar! What? I thought this place was left as is. I looked closer and the re-bar moved. Oh. Oh!! It was a giant centipede. Crawling through the wall right under my hand. Aren't those the ones that can make serious bites? I carefully backed away and filmed it, it was creepy, crawling there so hidden in the wall, but also serene, almost beautiful.

I just googled poison/venomous animals and -- man! -- someone has got to put together a more authoritative article about them all. There are tons of lists of "top 5" and "top 10" most dangerous animals, and "the world's most deadly animal" but they're not consistent. Some say frogs, some say coral, some say spiders. Actually, one we don't think about but probably does the most killing -- the mosquito -- not poisonous but they carry nasty diseases. I remember seeing an exhibit of venomous animals and there was a centipede that they claimed was a fierce killer, but all the sources I've found today say that they generally don't kill, just leave a painful sting.

This is interesting -- 10 animals you didn't know where venomous.

Oh, here's a children's book about a poisonous centipede -- not recommended for your kids bed time story!

White Ant Eggs

... some alley off Sukhumvit, Bangkok, Thailand

The Sukhumvit area of Bangkok is a paradise for the amateur adventure eater. From weird, unidentifiable bugs served by multi-gendered street vendors, to odd goat parts in strictly halal restaurants, and even a condom restaurant. We'd already eaten all the insects we could find, and after a few shots of various exotic liquors, we found a soup vendor with a large bucket of what looked like ... maggots. Gastronaut gold!



These were the fabled white ant eggs we'd been looking for, finally!


Collage of white ant eggs, larvae, and baby ants in our soup.

Most of them were plain white, about the size of puffed rice, but some of them had little black eye balls, and some of them were half egg / half embryo. And there were a few fully born ants in the mix as well.

The soup was awesome. Why can't the rest of the world do street food as good as Thailand? The little ant babies were soft and had a subtle peppery taste. Some of the plump ones popped in our mouth. These would be a fine addition to your morning Frosted Flakes -- ants are one of the most efficient ways to get protein.


Yum!