Bugged

by David MacNeal

  Fortunately, the new entomological shakers of the world know this. Just as high-quality, artisanal toast has trended this past decade, so too may entomophagy. San Francisco–based startup Bitty Foods incorporates milled cricket flour into pizza, pancakes, muffins, cardamom cookies, etc., for protein-full, gluten-free demands. Bitty was listed in Entrepreneur Magazine’s “100 Brilliant Companies” in 2014.

  If cricket protein flour sounds like a futile endeavor, take a look at Chapul. The Utah company, one of the first of its kind on the market, bakes ground crickets into energy bars. (Companies like Poland’s Ronzo, which makes cricket protein capsules, are expanding into the body builder world.) Chapul can now be found in stores nationwide. Another cricket powder startup called Chirps converts cricket flour into oven-baked chips in three different flavors: hickory BBQ, aged cheddar, and sea salt. The snack line was crowdfunded by two Harvard graduates around the same time Bitty made its mark. And like the Brooklyn-based Exo, Chirps offers a monthly subscription.

  “You can farm all the insects in the world, but if no one’s buying them? That’s a bigger problem,” says Chirps cofounder Laura D’Asaro. “So we decided what we really needed to work on was creating the market … We make insects fun and approachable rather than doom or gloom or making it all about environmental statistics.”

  Laura was able to travel abroad in college while majoring in African studies. While in a Tanzanian street market, she met a woman selling fried caterpillars. She bit into one. The caterpillar tasted like lobster. She loved it. Her question was: “Why are people not eating this?” Her roommate and future business partner Rose Wang had a similar experience in China. The insects reminded her of fried shrimp. Finally the two of them asked: “How do we get people to start eating this?”

  Before sourcing insects from Big Cricket Farms, they bought them from Petco. Their fellow students were not enthusiastic about either crickets or mealworms. “Getting people to eat insects is like getting people to eat rocks in that they don’t consider insects as a category of food. We see them as pests.” Bugs needed a bit of a mind bend. Given America’s love for the potato chip, the answer was obvious. They got away from “ooey gooey” and gave insects a “crunch.” The mouthfeel aesthetic worked.

  “I think about walking into a restaurant and being able to order a chicken burger, a beef burger, or what might be called an ‘ento’ burger,” says Laura. The movement is more about slow integration.

  As Dana Goodyear pointed out in her New Yorker piece “Grub,” this recent craze bears a resemblance to one popular food’s history: sushi in America. Convincing our culture to eat raw fish was an almost insurmountable crusade until it was richly priced as a delicacy. Sushi migrated over in the 1960s and gained cultural acceptance only 20 years later. Now it’s weird if you haven’t tried it.

  “Baby steps” is the philosophy on which the founders of London’s Ento operate, serving bugs to unsuspecting eaters by disguising them as colorful sushi. Take their concept for Honey Caterpillar Roll, which involves flattening fried waxworms like a thin omelet and wrapping it around radish, cucumber, and carrots. That redirection worked. Run by four people also in their mid-twenties, Ento organized pop-up restaurants that were successful in their own right, selling jars of cricket and caterpillar pâtés—taking something “weird and scary,” Fraser said in a Wired story I wrote, and “chang[ing] their expectations.” New Zealand restaurant Vault 21 does this for locusts by cleverly calling them “sky prawn.”

  But before we get behind the kitchen doors of top chefs defeating our neophobia with creative dishes, I wanted to educate the diner in me that, like most of you, views insects as a novelty food. Here’s the thing: The entomophagists I met up with enjoy eating bugs live or dead. Me, not so much. Yeah, I’ve had my share of stunt dining—mealworm-garnished steak, cricket guacamole hors d’oeuvres, baked scorpion garlic bread—but it was all for bucket list notches and Instagram.

  I sought a visceral encounter with what others put on their plate. In its naked form. Largely untampered with. Digested, hopefully, with a cast iron stomach.

  * * *

  Flashback: when I leave Japan, I bring several souvenirs back home in my anatomic carry-on luggage, aka my stomach. This is thanks to a Bug Crawl I partook in with two ladies. My entotarian host is a Tokyo resident who goes by Mushimoiselle Giriko—a combination of mushi (“bug”) and French formality. At Tokyo’s Takadanobaba station, I spot her amid the rushing businesspeople thanks to the black beetle mandibles jutting from her hat. Standing beside Giriko is her friend and fellow entomophagist Eri Sasayama, who’ll be acting as our translator today.

  How I came to know of Giriko escapes me. But while researching for my trip to Asia, I did read a Japan Times news article entitled “Waiter … There’s a Bug in My Soup.” It describes the blossoming Tokyo Bug-Eating Club led by head entomophagist Shoichi Uchiyama. He offers delicacies such as Dubia cockroaches—legs trimmed, abdomen disemboweled of its fecal-engorged intestines—over steamed rice. He’s been cooking insects for nearly 20 years and publishing books like Fun Insect Cooking and The Edible Insect Handbook. Additionally there’s the 2015 documentary Mushikui in which Shoichi eats a raw Japanese hornet from the hive. Mushimoiselle Giriko, who makes a cameo in the film, seems to have achieved micro-fame in Japan over the past 10 years, writing her own entotarian guide, Eating Bug Notebook. She can be seen in the documentary catching wild grasshoppers on a riverbank and then frying them during a picnic, dipping them in tempura sauce.

  The three of us sit at a small table in a hidden Burmese restaurant called Nong Inlay, waiting for an ento dish—our first on this Bug Crawl through the eccentric neighborhood of Shinjuku.

  “We have a game we play where we eat food that appears in comic books,” Giriko tells me. One dish was drawn by famous horror manga artist Kazoo Umezu. “In his comic, one girl eats rice with cockroach,” says Giriko via her friend Eri. As far as personal preferences go, Giriko recommends Madagascar hissing roaches. But the recommendation comes with a culinary caveat. For this next part in our conversation, Eri laughs, apologizes, and whips out her pocket translator. “We clean out the internal organs,” Giriko says. This is a culinary act compared to de-pooping shrimp because “they smell awful.”

  Before our waitress appears, I examine a list that Giriko has printed out for me beforehand. On it are 13 different pictures of bugs, each with their Japanese and English names: scorpion, ants, locust, silkworm, scarab and diving beetles, spider, crickets, etc. Of course, it doesn’t dawn on me that this is not merely a list, but this evening’s menu. A brief description accompanies each. For bee larvae she’s written: “In Japan, it’s common for us to boil them with sugar. We can buy frozen black wasp pupae in Nagano.” The prefecture Giriko speaks of is an inland region with a traditional connection to entomophagy, as sea creatures were harder to obtain there. The rest of Japan thinks eating insects is “weird.”

  “Our diet is becoming very Americanized,” says Giriko.

  “It’s very clean in Tokyo,” Eri chimes in. “Many people are not accustomed to seeing bugs or insects,” she continues. “Yes. They hate those animals. But in the rural areas, like the mountainside of Nagano Prefecture, they don’t hesitate to eat bugs as food. Because from when they are child, there are so many bugs and insects around them.”

  Our plates arrive. Appetizer portions of house crickets and bamboo caterpillars stare back at us with their glassy eyes. We first munch away on the crickets. Unlike the ones at Coalo Valley Farms, these retain all their limbs and antennae. No guacamole this time.

  “They are like potato,” says Giriko. I find the taste more like a nut. It’s a welcome familiarity. In the next dish, albino worms cluster in a cute, Micro Machine way. Fried,7 the normally squirmy body stiffens into a line with pin-sized legs that could be attached to an electrical circuit board. The caterpillars look relatively harmless enough to be packaged on a convenience store rack: Doritos’ Nacho Average Bug. Nuttier Butter. Or, for
the British take on crisps called Walkers, Crawlers.

  A caterpillar crumbles in my mouth. I cough instantly.

  “It’s a bit dry,” I manage to say, clearing caterpillar dust from my throat. I take several swigs of beer. The caterpillars taste exactly like French fries. The scratchy sensation depends on the freshness of the bugs. Or lack thereof, in this case. Even insects have a shelf life. Since the caterpillars have been dead too long, they make for a dry snack. Entomophagy health fears largely coincide with a standard Western diet. Check the sell-by date. Aside from that, Mushimoiselle Giriko brought up another concern. Would her entotarianism harm her baby while she was pregnant? It was a first for her OB/GYN, who ultimately permitted her to fulfill her entomological cravings. By now, Giriko may have started her toddler on insects.

  Our next stop takes us into an alleyway by the JR station. In a dark corner there are Tibetan prayer flags flying and a Pee-wee Herman–style bicycle parked outside. For a moment, I feel transported back to the exotic tent encampments at the counterculture mecca Burning Man. This is Kometosakasu—a meeting ground for the Tokyo Bug-Eating Club. Daylight from the bedsheet-covered windows lessens as we step inside for our 5:00 p.m. reservation. Large dim lanterns cast meshed shadows along the wall of corrugated roof panels and upcycled wood. We take a seat in the back corner of the house. My eyes slowly adjust as our waitress brings three jugs of “very strong” homemade alcohol, flavored with floating dead animals. Venomous snakes. Dead seahorses. And black ants. It’s as though the Evolution Store in New York opened a minibar. I get a shot pour of the black ants and clink glasses with the ladies.

  “Kampai!”

  Bebop jazz plays overhead. The murky ant-ohol (unforgivable puns permitting) is reportedly good for back pain, which is reminiscent of the medical findings on Hymenoptera I discussed in chapter 7. Speaking of the taxonomy order, our starting bowl of black wasp larvae boiled in soy sauce arrives at the table. Dish No. 1: “It contains a lot of vitamin B,” says Giriko, “which is good for beauty.” I crack my chopsticks apart and have at it. The wasp larvae, after a couple mouthfuls, have a soft, raisiny texture and are very sweet and a bit creamy, but not in an off-putting way. You could imagine mixing them, as Giriko does, with couscous. In the bowl beside the black wasp are mid-sized locusts also cooked in soy. I’m taken aback entirely. Beyond the sweet, brown glaze there’s a fine crunch followed by a light, refreshing herbal taste. My ick factor has gone by the wayside as I hog the bowl. The flavor, I learn, comes from the locusts’ diet of rice leaves.

  But I’m not sold on the soup.

  Dish No. 2: Deflated, shiny brown pods float in the bowl. These are silkworms. “Say hello,” Giriko says, laughing as I look into all their shrunken faces. Listening later to my digital recorder, my trepidation is tangible. That dizzying, seasick queasiness grips me. I take a spoonful and roll it around my mouth. It doesn’t help that I can feel the pupae’s ridges along my tongue.

  “It’s like a combination of meat and fish and vegetable,” says Eri. “There are some people who don’t like to eat silkworm because of its characteristic texture. How do you like it?”

  “It tastes the same way a fish store smells,” I say, sounding like Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons. Like a koi pond. Or algae. But apparently this soup is better than market-bought cans of silkworms, which are not popular with certain insect connoisseurs due to their lack of freshness.

  Dish No. 3 features silkworms, locusts, diving beetle, scarabs, bamboo caterpillars, and a scorpion seemingly posed by Lorenzo Forcella into attack position on a stick with a pineapple cube on the tip.

  I spin the kebabed scorpion around to view it from different angles, its armor plates gleaming. One of the more difficult things about eating scorpions is, where do you start? I slowly bite into the crisp pincer. Unlike sea crustaceans, terrestrial invertebrates easily give to our incisors. Scorpions taste kind of like crawfish. The scarab, however, has a disheartening texture that’s as brittle and hardened as toffee-coated popcorn and, according to Giriko, tastes like it too. Its body contains elytra, those shell-like wings, which make for a dreadful mouthfeel.

  “There’s a lot of exoskeleton,” I comment while crunching on it. The hard-shelled wings roll in my mouth like press-on nails. “Takes a while to chew.”

  They bring out No. 4—tamago (egg) sushi with weaver ant pupae, which provide a popping texture and added protein—and No. 5: fried rice sprinkled with ant legs. Viewed aerially, the black legs remind me of my sink after a morning shave. “In this dish,” Eri explains, “ants are used as a spice.” In China, ants can be used as a salad dressing for a hint of sourness. A few spoonfuls later, my uvula is coated in legs like a prickly pear cacti. My eyes turn red from excessive coughing.

  “Do you need some water?” asks Eri.

  I give a thumbs-up.

  Giriko shouts to the waiter, “Sumimasen!”

  I make a hocking noise, quickly apologizing.

  “Sorry.” I blush. “I had to do it.” Give me a medal for Best American Ambassador. Returning to the large plate of bugs on Dish No. 3, I study one in particular. This disgusting bug unfortunately reminds me of the Texas body farm.

  Eri starts: “This diving bug tastes very”—she searches for the right word—“characteristic. It’s an acquired taste and smell.” And sight. Its limbs are folded in like landing gear on an airplane. Combined with its smooth top shell, it’s more akin to a Vaseline-lubed ovular marble, which is made obvious as I try to pinch it with chopsticks.

  “Wow, okay, this one’s really slippery,” I say as it skates around the plate. “I don’t know if my chopstick skills are up to par.”

  Eri laughs, watching it comically slip into the air. Even for the Japanese, it is difficult, she tells me. Finally I pinch it. My soul sighs. “All right,” I coach myself. “Giddyup.” My teeth painfully carve through distinct layers, releasing a pimple pop of juice. I know this sounds very specific, but it tastes like charred broccolini with parmesan, which in turn is a smell a putrid corpse can also emit. I can see why bullies feed bugs to schoolyard prey. Eri’s not too thrilled either as she scrunches her face, adding, “It smells like a drain pipe.”

  I take a heavy slug of ant-ohol.

  Our last destination is a cab drive away through Tokyo’s polychromatic metropolis to a windy series of alleyways. The rain-slicked awnings reflect lighted storefront displays printed with Mandarin characters. We stroll through the alleyway labyrinth to Shanghai Xiao-to, a legendary hole in the wall. I’ve been informed that the Chinese restaurant’s off-menu specials include cow penis and dog—actual bark-bark dog—which is popular winter fare. “This place is famous among those people who like that,” Eri tells me. “And the tarantula is expensive here. It costs 2500 yen.” (Roughly $24.)

  The owner leads us to the back room. I contort my body through the playhouse-sized restaurant like the Hulk at a tea party, stepping sideways through a doorway, head tilted.

  A couple of minutes later our server places two plates on the table. Tarantula and centipede—the type of centipede stunt-y tourists dare each other to eat from a snack cart in, say, Beijing’s Wangfujing street market. Kebab-ed on a stick, the centipede resembles a series of shields with bent spears jutting from the flanks. The voice of logic clears its ant-leg-coated throat. You’re a total asshole, it says. I then turn my head to consider the tarantula, charred with bits of unruly hair. Eri Sasayama notices the constipated face I’m making.

  “Is that okay?” she asks.

  “Sorry,” I whimper. “I’m just processing the idea of eating a spider. But I did actually help them reproduce recently,” I add. (Recall our dear Claudia from chapter 3.) “So, I don’t know.”

  I opt instead for the other creature, lightly seasoned with paprika. I pick up the kebab. The restaurant chatter comes to a complete halt as all eyes focus on us. Not quite sure it’s because of the American on the brink of tears about to eat a centipede or because the chef impaled the centipede with a stick-h
andle through the mouth, meaning I’m about to chomp down on a calfskin-colored centipede butt. Giriko asks to take photos and starts laughing. Eri’s never seen anyone eat this—not even Giriko has tried centipede.

  Eri translates for her: “But I think it’s a very good experience for you to eat them.”

  “Anus first?” I ask. “Is that the best way to go?”

  I bring the side of its body to my mouth. Its head on my fingertips; its stiff cold legs touching my bottom lip like a drooping bobby pin. My mouth creeks open and its legs prickle my cheek—the discomfort you feel welcoming a shudder-causing stranger into your house. I laugh nervously. My guests look on with cringing smiles. Today’s word of the day is schadenfreude.

  My teeth slowly crunch into the dehydrated thing, my jaws resisting due to the innate voice in my head saying Just what the fuck are you doing? Giriko lets out a deeply resonant and astonished “Oh” and then speaks in punctuated English: “Fan-tas-tique.”

  A squeak emerges from the back of my throat as I rip the tail off. My eyes bulge out of their sockets. It’s gray! Gray innards stare back at me within this red hollow reed of skin! Reclaiming my eyeballs from the floor, my jaw does this thing where it moves up and down to turn this gray crusty thing into smaller bits of gray crusty things that are small enough to swallow. Giriko and Eri crack up at the photo they’ve taken of my face midbite in all its goofball agony.