Biting Back at Insects

Iron Man's Lovely Decaffeinated Pepper Potts

 



 

Iron Man III brought in $175.3 million dollars on its opening weekend.  That’s a lot of beans.  Luckily for Gwyneth Paltrow, who portrays the beautiful and savvy Pepper Potts in the movie and was recently picked by People magazine as “World’s Most Beautiful Woman”, beans are still part of her diet.  So is pepper, I suppose in deference to her character in the movie.

 

MS Paltrow released a cookbook this spring that urges readers to remove coffee, alcohol, eggs, sugar, shellfish, soy,  dairy, wheat, meat, processed food and various and sundry other items from their diet.  Beans are still ok.  I’m not sure where she stands on the recent initiative of the United Nations to fight hunger by feeding people bugs that are efficiently produced by “Insect Farms”.  Insect Farms?  I’ve got 15 acres teeming with insects I’d be happy to part with - for the right price.  One problem.  My insects think this is a people farm and that I am the main entrée.

 

In my younger more adventurous years, I once purchased a package of chocolate-covered bumble bees.  They were very similar to coating a lump of rice krispies with chocolate.  A little bit crunchy, but pretty much all you taste is chocolate.  Which I believe is a fine way to entice the female portion of our population into at least giving insects a try.  Dark-chocolate covered cicadas.  Grasshopper sauté, crunchy fat ‘hoppers dipped in a chocolate peanut butter sauce.   Yummy.  With loads of protein!  If you want guys to try them, dip them in batter and deep-fry them.   Hey, if the Testicle Festival is such a success around here, who’s to say a Crispy Cricket Festival wouldn’t do equally well (as long as they sold beer like the Testicle Festival).

 

My father-in-law, gone nearly 10 years now, grew up during the lean years of the Depression.  He often said they survived on fish caught in a nearby stream and turnips.   For him, the shock of military life in WWII was offset by the joy and regularity of Army chow.  His favorite dish was S*** on a Shingle.  That’s what chipped beef and gravy served on toast referred to in those days.  Probably still is.

 

But if the new edible insect kick is successful, the recipe may be revised to “Dung Beetles on a Shingle”. 

 

Just think – it was unnecessary for my father-in-law’s family to survive on fish and turnips alone during the Depression.

 

For more variety they could have eaten the bait.

 

 

 

CRICKET - IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER!