How about some stewed silkworm pupas

I'm on a mission to learn how to cook - heck, you never needed to learn here in Malaysia coz food's so cheap and so easily available - but I was kicking myself in New Zealand for not learning how to cook. Restaurant/cooked food there is damn expensive and spicy stuff is well, a bit of an effort to acquire.

So today I decided to be nice and try my first attempt at green curry chicken for my beloved wife & Edmund. Imagine my excitement when I saw that a new Korean grocery store had just opened near my fav friendly neighbourhood store Jaya Grocer in Damansara Perdana (by the way, Jaya Grocer in Jaya 33 has the most amazing mind-boggling variety of stuff on 1 shelf that I have EVER seen. SERIOUS. Didn't know there so that many types of flour available. The organic section is awesome too.)

Beondegi in a cup from Korean street vendors

Coming back to the Korean shop. I have been working on an article about the UN wanting to make insects as food to curb global warming & world hunger (cheaper to farm, less gas emission) so beondegi (stewed/boiled silkworm pupa), a Korean snack, was one of the stuff I was researching on. Here's the list of other insect snacks around the world. And this was what was published in The Star.

I entered the shop for a curious look around and headed towards the can food section in hope that they would be carrying this exotic tidbit. Imagine my excitement when I found it (I was practically jumping for joy inside but playing it cool outside.)

Took the can to the counter and saw this tall young korean-matsy mixed dude approaching so I asked him if he knew how to cook it. He spoke Korean to an older man and translated that all I have to do is open the can, pour the contents out and boil it for a few minutes till it's soft. Sounds simple enough.

My prized find

Like what you see inside?

Su & Edmund came late but nvm. So we opened the can and dumped the gross-looking contents in a pot and boiled the little critters (poor things, they never had a chance of flying free) till we thought they were soft. We poked it with a fork just to make sure.. it was still quite hard.. But as we were famished, we thought oh what the heck, we won't die.

Boiling till its soft

End product

The things looked like dried up roaches, but without the jutting legs. If you scrutinise it closely and turn it over, you can kinda see the moth's legs curled up in their pupa. Here's a closer shot of these buggers.


Its bottom. Can kinda see their legs.



All wrapped up

I took quite a while to put one in my mouth. Su was creeping me out with stories of the moths coming alive like cockroaches when I swallow it and it would start crawling up my throat. Bitch. She didn't help damn it. Edmund was more cool. He just looked at it and said oh ok.

After much hesitation, but I was determined to eat it - hey, I've gotten THIS far - I chucked one pupa in my mouth and chewed on it. The taste was totally unexpected. It had a fishy taste, maybe because it was soaked in salty liquid, much like ikan bilis but with a mushy beady texture, like cooked fish eggs. It wasn't too bad actually. If you can get over the initial concept and don't think about what it is. Prawn's are sea bugs anyway. I'm sure you'll eat it if your eyes were closed and LIKE the bloody thing.

Su is a major chicken. She tried one and that was it. Well, at least she tried. Edmund heaped it on his plate like nasi lemak's ikan bilis and being kiasu, I followed suit. Seriously, it wasn't that bad. We ended up finishing half of the tin. An accomplishment seeing that it was only the 2 of us eating it. Think it would make great beer snacks. Ta-paued the rest for Carolynn to try at home.

Oh, and the rest of my food was finished too. Not bad for a first try who never cooks. *pat pat on back* so proud of myself hahah. At least I'll have decent curry in NZ ;)

I cooked all this k!!

Su brought some peace offering from Mines (Edmund's workplace). Coffee cake with some delicious biscuits to go with all my fattening coffee liquor. Edmund took some arty shots of melting ice too.

Ice art

All in all, a very proud day indeed. If any of you are interested, the can of beondegi is priced at RM3.80 and is available at the Korean shop at The Tropics, Damansara Perdana. It's right at the entrance, you won't miss it. Happy sampling!

Hey, we eat insects

Eating creepy crawlies and grubs might be something straight out of Fear Factor for some but for locals in these countries, it’s just as common as your local fast food chain.

Australia

Abundant in southern New South Wales during summer, witchetty grubs, the small, white larvae of ghost moths, have been an essential part of the Aboriginal diet for centuries. The grubs are dug from the gum tree roots and are eaten live or barbecued. They are rich in protein and would make a nutritious source if you lost in the bush. Supermarkets even have them in soup tins.

It's scrumptius mate!

Thailand, Laos and Cambodia
Walk the markets of these countries and you will be greeted by street vendors selling an amazing variety of fried insects as snacks. These orders of insects are commonly found : odonata (damselflies and dragon flies), orthoptera (crickets, grasshoppers, katydids), mantodea (mantids), isoptera (termites), hemiptera (water bugs, cicadas, backswimmers), lepidoptera (silkworm moths are popular), coleoptera (weevils, wood-boring beetles, diving beetles) and hymenoptera (bees, ants, wasps). Some restaurants serve insects as part of their menu as well.

Crunch crunch

China
Chinese people are known to eat ‘anything that moves’ so finding locals delighting in insect snacks and delicacies shouldn’t come as a surprise. Just head to a local street markets such as the ones in Tianjin, Hangzhou, Canton or the Wangfujing Night Market in Beijing for a weird and wonderful array. Silkworm cocoons, cicada larvae, fried locusts, crickets and grasshoppers, and eight-legged critters such as scorpions, tarantulas and spiders are a common sight.

Market in Beijing

South Korea
Beondegi or silkworm pupae is a popular snack for South Koreans. They can be bought on the streets, served in bars or restaurants as appetizers or bought in a can from a Korean grocery and convenience stores. Beondegi can be eaten boiled, steamed, stewed or stir-fried.

Beondegi in a cup

Japan
The Japanese have been eating insects for centuries, especially aquatic insects which were an important source of protein. Restaurants in Tokyo and many parts of Japan still offer various insect-based dishes such as hachinoko (boiled bee larvae), Inago no Tsukudani (stewed grasshoppers or locusts in sweet soy sauce), zazamushi (aquatic insect larvae), semi (fried cicadas) and sangi (silkworm pupae. Known as beondegi in Korea).

Hachinoko. Kelantan has our local version. 

Columbia
Hormigas culonas, literally translates to “big-butt ants” in Spanish, is a priced delicacy in Columbia. These leaf-cutter ants are aptly named because of their large lower abdomen. Only the young queens and drones are harvested in the Santander region in spring after the rainy season when they surface to establish their own ant colonies. The ants are roasted and eaten as snacks, a favourite for moviegoers and as bar snacks. Termites and palm grubs are popular edible insects as well.

Big ass butts alright

Mexico
The agave worm, also known as the maguey worm, is the worm you find in tequila bottles. They are also eaten roasted, fried, cooked inside a tortilla or as part of a recipe for a meal. Chapulines or fried grasshoppers are a common snack which are also found commercially canned and sold in supermarkets and local grocery stores. Ants, rich in thiamine and riboflavin, are consumed both in egg form and as adults. Ant eggs, which are common in Mexican markets, are often cooked in butter and served in tacos. Ant larvae are canned and exported as gourmet food.

Here, have some chapulines

Africa

In Africa, many of the tribes eat insects such as termites, grasshoppers, caterpillars, palm weevil larvae, beetles, ants, and locusts. The wings of the termites are removed before roasting or fried and salt is added to taste. Guts of crickets and grasshoppers are removed before fried. Locusts are typically boiled and salted prior to eating. Another widely eaten insect is the westwood larvae, a caterpillar known as kanni. They are boiled and dried in the sun before eaten or used as an ingredient in vegetable soup. Another larvae, the palm weevil larva, is a large insect that is fleshy and grublike with a high fat content. They are collected from the trunks of palm trees and fried. An even larger insect, the compost beetle larvae, can be found in garbage, manure piles or swampy areas. The lower abdomen containing the guts is removed before being washed and fried. Some don’t eat it because they are taken from ‘dirty’ places.

Dirty buggers - compost beetle larvae

You can read the first part of the post here.
Published Star article here.

Grasshopper Big Macs anyone?

I was working on an article on entomophagy, the practise of eating insects, and I found the topic to be so interesting that I would like to share it with everyone.

Did you know that while it might not be appealing to some, human consumption of insects is actually quite common in some parts of the world?


Mmm yum

In Asia, Thais, Laotians and Cambodians think nothing of snacking on fried grasshoppers, crickets, locusts or water bugs, dragonflies boiled in coconut milk is a delicacy in Bali and hachinoko or boiled bee larvae is a traditional Japanese dish. Moviegoers in South America eat roasted ants instead of popcorn and it’s considered good luck if the agave worm in Mexican tequila bottles ends up in your glass. One man’s meat is certainly another man’s poison.

Due to people giving birth left, right and centre all over the world, food resources are getting more expensive and scarce. It is not surprising then that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is formally considering a policy paper to promote insects as food to the world. FAO held a conference in 2008 in Thailand on the theme "Forest Insects as Food: Humans Bite Back," to advocate for greater economic development of insects as food sources and will discuss the subject further in their upcoming 2013 world congress.

Professor Arnold van Huis

Dutch Professor Arnold van Huis, an entomologist at Wageningen University in Holland and the author of the UN paper, argues that bugs have high nutritional values, use less land and need less feed thus being cheaper to farm, and would produce far less greenhouse gas than current livestock. Health risks are also lower as being so biologically different from humans, insects are less subject to contagious diseases like the mad cow scare. Talk about an all-in-one solution to food security and global warming!

In an interview with Guardian, van Huis says that "The world population will grow from six billion now to nine billion by 2050 and we know people are consuming more meat. Twenty years ago the average was 20kg. It is now 50kg, and will be 80kg in 20 years. If we continue like this we will need another Earth."

In terms of combating global warming, the Professor’s latest research shows that farming insects such as locusts, crickets and meal worms emits 10 times less methane than livestock of cows, pigs, sheep and chicken. They also produce 300 times less nitrous oxide, also a warming gas, and much less ammonia, a pollutant produced by pig and poultry farming.

Being cold-blooded, insects don’t need to convert food energy into heat meaning that they need less food to grow. This makes farming insects a much sustainable alternative compared to farming livestock.


Farm me instead

FAO says that there are1,462 species of recorded edible insects with the most common coming from four main insect groups: beetles; ants, bees and wasps; grasshoppers and crickets; and moths and butterflies.

Some insects have as much protein as meat and fish. In dried form, insects have often twice the protein of fresh raw meat and fish, but usually not more than dried or grilled meat and fish. Some insects, especially in the larval stage, are also rich in fat and contain important vitamins and minerals.



Grasshopper BigMac

The arguments for eating insects sound very good on paper but would it take off in a world that has been softened by western cultural influences? Don’t hold your breath for ground grasshopper BigMacs with mashed crickets shaped as fries just yet but Malaysia does have a few places where creepy crawlies are part of its menu.

Kelantanese Teoh Yew Aun is also a frequent customer of a restaurant called 'Victoria Station' as it is located next to the train tracks in Tumpat serving fried bees. He says that "The first sensation you feel is the squishiness of the larvae before the crunchiness of the baby bees, much like goreng pisang batter. It’s hard to describe the taste. It’s very different because of the larvae but it tastes very good. Especially with beer.”

Entomophagy is also very common in various parts of East Malaysia where sago worms and other kinds of bugs are sold at local markets. I've tried live sago worms from Satok market in Kuching, Sarawak.

Eating the live sago worm at the RWMF 2009 Iban Longhouse 

Elizabeth Chan says that there are a few restaurants on the way to Tumpat that serves insects. They go to Bankok Restaurant, near the police station in Wakaf Baru, for fried bees. They also go to Ahan Thai at Pengkalan Kubur for fried bees & sago worms.

I guess the UN will have quite a lot of work cut out for them if they really want to implement this proposal successfully. I’m just thankful that normal food is still very much abundant in Malaysia. Now where’s the nearest Ramly burger stall?

I've also compiled a list of countries where eating bugs are as common as eating chips.