GRASSHOPPERS AS FOOD

Evening Star, Issue 19021, 17 August 1925, Page 9

GRASSHOPPERS AS FOOD

Everyone knows that cats catch grasshoppers ?,nd cat them with great relish, though housewives will tell you that they grow thin on that diet (says the ‘ Youths’ Companion ’). Fubre, tho famous naturalist, believes that grasaboppsra ami similar insects would be pa.atablc food for human beings, too, and in one of his books, says -Mr Percy F. ■Bioknoil, he quoted with approval this passage from General Daumas’s book, ‘The Great Desert,’ explaining in a footnote that tho grasshopper (sauterelle) refeired to is mono exactly the cricket, which must not bo confused with the true grasshopper; ‘‘The grasshopper is good eating, both for men and for camels. Either fresh or pickled l it is oaten after tho feet, the wings, and tho head have bean removed; ibo rest is broiled or oho starved, and served up in the form of moat balls. After being dried in the sun it is ground to powder, which may bo stirred into milk or rnado into dough and then fried in fat or butter with salt. “ Carnots greatly like to eat grasshoppers, which arc served to them either dried or after being roasted in a heap, in a large hole between two layers of live coals. The negroes also eal them cooked in that way. '“Tho Virgin Mary,’ having asked God for pome meat that should have iio blood, lit sent her somo grasshoppers. “The wives of the prophets, when anyone sent them a. present of grasshoppers, always shared them with the other women, “The Calif Omar one day, when ho was asked whether the use of grasshoppers for ■food was permitted, replied: ‘I should like to have a basketful of them to cat.’

“Prom all this testimony it- is clear!;, •evident that by the grace of God grasshop pora were given to man for food.”