And Now for Something Lighter (and Crunchier)

In the wee hours of an insomniac morning I wandered over to Jonniker's blog and read a thread about maggots, which led--once I'd fallen back asleep--to a dream that they were crawling out of a boil on my face. Which led--perhaps because my mouth is on my face--to an intense desire to learn about the flavors of different bugs. Here's what I found, courtesy of a report from the University of Nebraska:

Grasshoppers, termites and grubs are not typical American cuisine, but many cultures eat insects with great relish. What do bugs taste like? Here is a sampling...

--Raw termites taste like pineapple and cooked termites have a delicate, vegetable flavor.

--Grubs (which are larvae) of palm weevils taste like beef bone marrow.

--Fried agave worms (canned in Mexico) taste like sunflower seeds.

--Diving beetles (available in Chinatown in San Francisco) taste something like clams.

--Fried grasshoppers taste like sardines.

--French-fried ants (imported from Colombia) taste like beef jerky.

--A praying mantis, fried over an open fire, tastes like shrimp and raw mushrooms.

--Fried wax moth larvae taste like corn puffs or potato chips.

--Fried spiders taste like nuts.

--Fried baby bees taste like smoked fish or oysters.

Unappetizing? Consider that honey, a food that is appropriate in our culture, has been swallowed and regurgitated hundreds of times by honey bees. Source: Invisible Bugs and Other Creepy Creatures That Live With You.

Hungry? Here's a list of 32 edible insects you can buy online. Amazon.com carries Bacon & Cheddar Cheese Flavored Crickets. In the spirit of snappy commercialism, they're called Crick-ettes. (Crick-ettes also come in Salt 'n' Vinegar and Sour Cream & Onion flavors.) You can also buy Larvets and Roasted Pregnant Crickets and Smokey BBQ Scorpions.

At a site called Candy Favorites, you can buy Amber InsectNside Toffee Candy, Butterfly Candy, Cricket Lick-It Lollipops, and, once again, Larvets, here in "tasty Mexican Spice flavor." You are enthusiastically advised to note that "Larvets are now in a larger serving size!" ----SO! Speaking of pregnant crickets, I took a pregnancy test yesterday and it came up very faintly positive due to the residual hcg in my system. I'm taking another tomorrow to see if the line is any darker, which would suggest that my body is making its own hcg. At this point I suspect I'm not pregnant, for several reasons, one of which is the fact that I've seen all these images of edible insects, including the locust tacos (pictured), and haven't once had the urge to throw up.