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Crispy
Crickets, They're Not Just For Dinner Anymore
by Mad Dog
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The chain of
kiosks was launched in March by a Thai man who got tired of having to go
into the countryside to find decently prepared grasshoppers, and
there’s little question we can all empathize with that problem. |
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Did you ever have one of
those mornings when you wake up, stretch, look out at the beautiful
shining sun and think, “I sure would like a nice big bowl of fried
worms for breakfast”? Well soon you might be able to fulfill that
craving without having to haul a shovel and bucket into the back yard
while still dressed in your bathrobe. All you’ll need to do is drive
to the nearest Fear Factor Family Restaurant. Just kidding. Actually
you’ll look for a place called Insects Inter, though for the moment
you’ll have to go to Thailand to find one.
The chain of kiosks was launched in
March by 29-year-old Satapol Polprapas, a Thai man who got tired of
having to go into the countryside to find decently prepared
grasshoppers, and there’s little question we can all empathize with
that problem. He now has 60 locations and hopes to open 140 more by the
end of the year, just in time to fill orders for those who simply must
have water beetle deli platters to ring in the new year. The company’s
slogan is “Never mind the look, it tastes great,” which
coincidentally is the same one the E! Network originally planned to use
for the Anna Nicole Show. Until, that is, they opted for “Dumb
and dumber all rolled up in one!”
Before you turn up your nose at the
idea of eating bugs, remember that cooked insects are natural, organic,
full of protein, and don’t crawl around in your mouth like the ones on
Survivor. Then again, if you eat your scorpions fried with chili
sauce you don’t have a chance to win a million bucks either. In fact,
it will cost you. Insects Inter charges 30 baht (about 70 cents) for a
one-ounce Cuppa-Critters, extra if you make a scrunchy face when you eat
them.
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“So what are we
supposed to do in the meantime when we have cravings for hot fresh mole
crickets with sauce Bearnaise and Insects Inter hasn’t opened in the
Galleria yet?” It’s simple. Just go online. |
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That really shouldn’t be a problem. Trust me on this. I’ve
eaten some strange things in my travels, including—hold onto your ant
farm—fried silk worms in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and I’m still here to
talk about it. To be honest, I thought they were grubs and it wasn’t
until a few days later that I learned what they really were. By then, of
course, it was too late to get my money back, though to be fair the girl
selling them never said they were grubs. Or if she did I had no idea
since her English was worse than my Thai, meaning I could order a full
meal in a Thai restaurant while she probably couldn’t get much farther
than a Big Mac. Supersized, of course.
Insects Inter, ever the
groundbreaker, is planning to add grasshopper salad and cricket tempura
to the menu later this year, then expand the line to include vacuum
packed frozen insects to be sold in the supermarket. Satapol feels sure
that “crispy, crunchy crickets will replace popcorn as a favorite
snack in cinemas." Actually this may not be so farfetched since the
fried silk worms I ate weren’t bad. Okay, so they really didn’t have
a lot of taste, they were pretty much just crunchy. Toss them in a bag
with salt and douse them with butter-flavored soybean oil and I’d be
more than ready to sit down and watch a Pauly Shore retrospective.
“So what are we supposed to do in
the meantime when we have cravings for hot fresh mole crickets with
sauce Bearnaise and Insects Inter hasn’t opened in the Galleria
yet?” you’re probably asking. It’s simple. Just go online to www.dcothai.com/food/insects.htm
and order some. DCO Thai, a company that sells Thai books, video CDs,
and computer keyboards, has a section on their site which will take care
of your insect eating needs. You can choose from yummy snacks like
bamboo worms, red ant eggs, black scorpions, or the ever popular Mixed
Insects, which are ”cooked, salted and ready to eat.” Trust me,
there’s nothing worse than coming home with a package of Stouffer’s
Mixed Insects and discovering that you need to throw them in the
microwave oven. And add salt.
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In time cooked critters will become mainstream, finding
their way into 7-Elevens as Little Bites, Buggy Breakfast Burritos, and
Scorpion Slurpees. Move over Slim Jim. |
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DCO
Thai’s insects are canned, pasteurized, and guaranteed to exceed the
Food and Drug Administration’s standards for allowable insect parts
per billion. And they’re a steal at only $4.00 a can. For that
you’ll get 40 grams of Giant Water Bugs (“The most popular edible
insect in Thailand”), 120 grams of Red Ant Eggs (“Serve on toast or
in a Thai salad”), or two Black Scorpions (“Tastes like chicken”).
They ship all over the world and even have nutritional information on
the website, though they’re missing the boat by not listing each
insect’s Weight Watcher’s Points and Jenny Craig exchange
equivalent. Best of all, they’ll gift wrap your order for free,
offering a selection of paper designs which include baby shoe and heart
patterns, making Mixed Insects the perfect thing for those hard to find
baby shower and Valentine’s Day gifts.
Hopefully you won’t have to mail
order these for long as Insects Inter will recognize the wide open
market opportunity that exists in the U.S. Their kiosks would be a
natural adjunct to bait and tackle shops. Exterminators would rejoice as
they realize they have another source of revenue and convert to more
humane, less environmentally hazardous, methods of pest control. Like
trapping. And in time cooked critters will become mainstream, finding
their way into 7-Elevens as Little Bites, Buggy Breakfast Burritos, and
Scorpion Slurpees. Move over Slim Jims, there’s a new unidentifiable
foreign snack food taking over.
©2002 Mad Dog
Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country.
Read them while munching on some curried cockroaches.
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