Daniella Martin and arachnid hors d'ouevre.
While most of the world thinks nothing of eating insects, (indeed, it could be argued that in most of humanity’s history we’ve been eating insects), Europe and the US throw up their hands over their mouths in utter amazement of eating something with an exoskeleton that hasn’t been slurping up corpses on the sea floor. So while I bristle a bit at insect-eating being labeled as the latest “foodie craze”, I’m plenty happy to see a bunch of wonderful articles coming out about insect eating in my neck of the woods.
NPR, SF Gate, and several other news outlets are all pretty much sponging off the well-written and thorough article by Peter Jamison at the SF Weekly. Bug Me: San Francisco Helps Pioneer Insect Cuisine not only highlights local entomovores Daniella Martin and Mónica Martínez, but takes the time to interview nutritionalists, health inspectors, and scientists. Plus the writer puts his mouth where his money is, and samples some home-cooked holometabolous cuisine.
Speaking of sampling, money and mouths, I will be going to the insect food-tasting event tomorrow at Headlands Center for the Arts, with insects and fine mezcal served by none other than Martinez’ Don Bugito! Very excited. Also, very hungry.
