INSECTS AS FOOD

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1726, 29 March 1905, Page 2

INSECTS AS FOOD

The extent to which insects arc employed as food furnished tho subject for an investigation by M. G. Durand, a French scientist, which has recently been published in the “Reveil Agricole” of Marseilles, and has been commented on in the European and American medical Press. His examination of the subject i.as been so thorough that he has been red to believe that insects of almost every family are eaten in one part or another of the globe. The practice is of ancient origin, as the larvae of the capricorn bettle and of the born beetle, a plump and white variety found in worm-eaten wood, were eaten by the Romans. At the present day the natives of the West Indies eat the larvae of the stag-beetle, while in Germany a large beetle which preys on the ci*ops is eaten in several different ways. The Creoles of Bourbon are said to brail and eat the cockroach while the Arabs of the desert still .follow the example of John the Baptist and feed cn locusts. The latter insects, we are informed aro a regular article of trade, and after capture they are dried and salted, and then strung for the market. Diffei'ent peoples prepare ants as an article of food in different ways, it being the African custom to cook them in butter, wliilo in Brazil a l-esinous sauce is the favourite method. The Siamese are apparently more fastidious, and use the eggs of the ant. Of a different family is the termite, or white ant, which not only is eaten raw, but- by some natives in India is roasted in a fashion similar to coffee, and then, after being mixed with flour, is made into i■ y. The people of Ceylon are said to eat certain va.rieties of bees, while the grasshopper is a Greek delicacy, and its eggs, with the Mexicans, supply materi a 1 for c ake s. Although the Chinese are not- credited ’with a diet of beetles and grasshoppers, yet they are said tc derive from the chrysalis of the silkworm a strengthening and delicate food, whose mode of preparation varies greatly with the circumstances of the cook. The poor simply remove the envelop© from the chrysalis, and then broil the latter, which they eat seasoned with salt and pepper. For a more pretentious dish the chrysalis is fried in lard, butter, or oil, and then mixed with the yolk of egg, the whole forming a creamy mass, which is said to be most attractive to the eye and palatable to tho taste. The above list, while not. exhaustive, indicates some of the purposes of food for which insects serve, and does not seem to prove that the practice is dying out with the increaso of civilsation.