This week I ‘ave been mostly eating…

N is for NEW FOOD…

It happens rarely these days. I don’t usually find something I haven’t eaten before, and I have to admit I did find this online, but I found something I haven’t had before. I had chocolate coated bugs.

Chocolate coated bugs.

I will repeat, with much enthusiasm, CHOCOLATE COATED BUGS.

THEY CAME. FROM THAILAND.

About four or five weeks ago I decided I wanted to eat bugs. A quick google search later and I discovered a website that could accommodate my desire, Thailand Unique. I put in my order. I waited. Two weeks passed, still waiting. Maybe people were right and it didn’t make it through customs. Oh well, it didn’t cost too much, worth a shot.

Then one day at work someone asked me if I had ordered anything from Thailand, there was a package on my desk from there. I dropped what I was doing and ran, for the first time in a while, to my desk. THEY MADE IT.

I held them in my hand and raced to one of my friends at work to show her. Later on we would have one each.

I got chocolate coated scorpions, chocolate coated crickets, chocolate coated sago worms and chocolate coated silk worms. I ate them in that order.

Chocolate Coated Scorpions

I waited until the person at work I wanted to share it with was free to do so. It was the first tin I opened. Two small chocolate coated scorpions were in the tin. She had one and I had one. They were crunchy, but mostly tasted of chocolate. Mostly. There is a dish at my favourite restaurant, Detour, called gun powder salmon. It has black ants on it to give it a kick. The scorpion had a similar kind of kick. It was pretty good, but had the same sort of aftertaste as the ants did too.

Aside from the crunch and the chocolate, there isn’t much flavour to a scorpion. There is some though. In hindsight the only thing I can think to describe it as is scorpion flavour, which sounds kind of obvious when you think about it. It tastes less like prawns or crabs than I thought it would.

All up, I like it. I also liked walking around work complaining legitimately about having scorpion shall stuck in my teeth.

Chocolate Coated Crickets

This was the next tin I opened.

Oh yeah, all the insects came in these small tins the size of small cat food tins.

Anyway, the next tin contained the crickets. They were a little disappointing in chocolate. Like the scorpions and the ants, they had a slight ant like after taste. If you have never eaten ants, it is a tiny bit like vegemite and alfoil had a baby and it is now jumping around on your tongue, in a subdued fashion. If they leave the sting on, or that bit at the end that bloody hurts if it is a green ant, you get a little kind of popping feeling too.

Crickets don’t have the pop. They don’t have a stronger flavour than chocolate either. If it hadn’t been for the bits of shell stuck in my teeth I may not have noticed the flavour at all. I want to try crickets on there own to see what they taste like, or with chili.

Chocolate Coated Sago Worms.

Sago worms are wormish for the most part, with a crunchy head, and small chunk of crunchy torso. Like the others, they had the odd aftertaste. At first I thought it may have been any bug that had chiton, bug armour if you will. Then I realised, bees don’t have that. Bees are kind of sweet, and mostly crunch. Maybe it was being in the tins that did it. Not sure, will have to have more to find out.

The worm itself had the first real bit of flavour that stood up to the chocolate. It was a mild flavour still but I could taste it. Kind of smooth and nutty works. I think they use nutty to describe something that has a blandish kind of flavour that leaves you desperately searching for a description. Also woody.

Brendon’s food terms – Nutty – no real describable flavour but you need to tell them something, see also Woody.

Oh, I think if you had just the right amount of olive oil and mixed enough salt in it to shift it up slightly higher than bland, that would be the flavour mixed with the chocolate.

As much as I haven’t sold it here, they were not bad. Try them one day.

Chocolate Coated Silk Worms

These were my favourites. They were beautiful and smooth. They had an almost creamy flavour, not very sweet, but really smooth. If any insect is destined to be mixed with chocolate flavour it is these. I could probably eat a kilo of these.

Shouldn’t but could.

They tasted like the kind of flavour that you know is probably not good for you to eat a lot of. No odd aftertaste. No real crunch, you can’t have a perfect win. No chiton caught in my teeth. I loved these.

Given my general taste in food, I am not going to say go buy them they are amazing. Not many people share my tastes, but please don’t pass up an opportunity to try them. Once you get over the fact that you’re eating a silkworm, you might like it.

In conclusion

This is definitely something I am doing again. There are more bugs to eat and more flavour combinations to try. Chili crickets. Waterbugs. I want to try them all.

If you can wrap your head around the bug part they are pretty tasty.

 

Oh, that’s right. Burnt marrow. That tastes a little bit like the scorpion and ant after taste. Learning.