The Good, the Bad & the Tasty

By Anonymous -

By Cassidy Herbster, Hannah Warner and Ben Book

Pinterest
Welcome to Insect Cooking Class 101. Today we will be making grasshopper fritters and garlic butter fried grasshoppers. First step is to catch your grasshoppers. Since it is morning, and they are so abundant all across North America, there should be no problem capturing some. After you catch them, we will put them into a freezer for one to two hours, and then start the peeling process. Here are the instructions that you can follow along with: how to cook grasshoppers.


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Is this a cooking class that you would enjoy? Surprisingly enough, there are many people that would jump at the opportunity to take an insect cooking class. Although it might not be very popular in the United States, countries such as China, Uganda and Mexico would enjoy it. There are many ways people eat grasshoppers, some include tacos, stir fry, ice cream or even just fried and served on a stick.




Tumbler.com

Grasshoppers being eaten is something that can be seen as humorous to some people, and some of these people put it into film. There is an infamous scene in the mini-series Lonesome Dove, where the main characters are on a cattle drive and their cook has deserted them. The pair of old, grisled Texas Rangers ride into San Antonio, Texas to find a new one. They come across Po Campo, an older mexican man. The Rangers ask him is he is a good cook, to which he responds that he is just that. He lets them sample some of his cooking. They exclaim that it tastes like candy and they ask what is in it. Po Campo says just one word, “Grasshopper.” Upon hearing this, one of Rangers begins to retch right in front of Po Campo. Ever since then, I have often ponder on whether or not grasshoppers tasted sweet. Especially since one liked the candied grasshopper and the other did not.

Grasshoppers have not just recently become popular for dining. Eating grasshoppers dates all the way back to the Old Testament when Leviticus 11:22 stated “Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.” Although they were used for food in biblical times, the Bible also talks about how there were plagues of grasshoppers and many other instances where grasshoppers were involved. There are ten verses in the Bible that use the term “grasshopper” and can be read here.

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Although the Bible gave grasshoppers their first debut, in 1998, Pixar made a grasshopper antagonist in the hit film, A Bug’s Life. Now grasshoppers are not only a food item, but also hated by most children for being greedy bullies that attempted to ruin the ant colony. Every movie has to have an antagonist, and a grasshopper seemed to be the perfect fit for this movie since an ant was the main character. Compared to the ant, grasshoppers are very large in size and have hind legs that can seem extremely intimidating. Once you look past the size difference between the ant and the grasshopper, grasshoppers were not the best option for the “the bad guy” because they are not predators. The food chain around a grasshopper can be seen in the second figure below. The movie A Bug’s Life does, however, end scientifically correct when the feared bird eats the grasshopper because birds are actually predators towards grasshoppers (Animal Corner).


Google Images 
Google Images 
You might be asking yourself, why would grasshoppers be popular in cuisine, cinemax, books, and the Bible. A reason for this is that there is a very high population of grasshoppers all across North America. As you can see from the figure to the right, grasshoppers can be found across the majority of the United States and Mexico. When walking outside on a warm day you are capable of seeing many grasshoppers. They may be blending into the ground or their surroundings, but can be seen when they are jumping through the air. Just walking through different heights of grass during the hot summer months, one can scatter several with every footstep.

Another thing that grasshoppers are very commonly used for, but most people don’t know about or don’t give them enough credit for, is top-notch fishing bait. Growing up in the country, me and my brother would take a Pringles chip canister and fill it to the brim with grasshoppers to eventually lure a fat bass, perch, trout, crappie, or catfish onto our hooks. Most species of freshwater fish feed on insects, especially a grasshopper that flew or jumped too far and landed on the surface of the water. Baby frogs work great as bait as well.


So as you are walking around outside,
watching a movie, or even preparing dinner, be on the lookout for
these popular insects.











References 
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/374854368958979402/
http://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/grasshopper/nonkey/html/FactSheets/differen.htm
http://basementrejects.com/review/a-bugs-life-1998/
tumblr.com
http://www.eatgrub.co.uk/recipes/grasshopper-stir-fry/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/532269249691552155/


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