• Facebones@reddthat.com
    0·
    9 months ago

    I’ve had crispy dried grasshoppers that were chill once, and some BANGIN cricket tacos in NYC.

    They’re actually pretty great for protein.

  • 📛Maven@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    I live in a fishing town, and I used to love crab, until I was adult and it was my turn to prep them. The first time I turned a crab over and saw the bottom, where all its freaky little legs connect, I had a real “oh god this is either a bug or a space alien” moment. I can’t stand crab anymore, just the thought of it makes me feel nauseated. Lobster too. Somehow shrimps are okay, though.

    • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      9 months ago

      Bro… Shrimp are bait. How can you be grossed out by crab and then pinch a shrimp in half XD? I myself like all the water bugs… But land bugs are still gross.

      • Funkytom467@lemmy.world
        0·
        9 months ago

        Land bugs mostly have pretty blend or bad taste, regardless of their looks anyway. In Asia they often add spices to make them taste something.

        It’s a bit like snails too, it’s not that tasty itself, the only reason it’s good is because it tastes like the butter and garlic we put in.

        And for both it’s mostly the texture that’s off putting. Some people can grow used to the texture though.

      • evranch@lemmy.ca
        0·
        9 months ago

        I can see it, I grew up fishing for both too and shrimp are so easy and casual to twist and shuck off the shell and chow down, while crabs are all armored up and feel a lot more like eating an alien being.

        A tasty alien being, though.

        No land bugs for me either, they’re just full of goo inside. I like my animals full of meat, personally.

    • Funkytom467@lemmy.world
      0·
      9 months ago

      It’s gross sure but i never understood how that would make someone stop eating it. For me no matter how gross something is the taste is the only thing that matters.

      Other examples, rabbit’s brain, black pudding, or in general how we kill most animals to make steak… It’s always creepy, gross or a bit disturbing, but it never changed my taste for it.

  • Stretch2m@lemm.ee
    0·
    9 months ago

    If all the meat on earth disappeared tomorrow, I would become a vegetarian before ever knowingly consuming a bug.

  • catsarebadpeople@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    9 months ago

    Oh I can explain it easily! One of them tastes good and the other one tastes bad. That’s pretty much it… Not sure how it’s so confusing though

          • catsarebadpeople@sh.itjust.works
            0·
            9 months ago

            It’s a big deal in Oaxaca and they’re not bad. They add a ton of lime and salt and other seasonings. I had them when drinking Mezcal. The ants are really big too. Apparently they have like a spawning period where they’re just everywhere so you can just scoop them up and put them in a skillet really easily.

            Sorry to any actual big scientists. I’m sure I butchered that.

            • NaoPb@eviltoast.orgEnglish
              0·
              9 months ago

              If I am to believe the tellings from It Came From The Desert, there could be ants as big as a house.

            • andy_wijaya_med@lemmy.world
              0·
              9 months ago

              Can’t imagine if I were to eat ants. Grasshopper I can imagine. But ants… I come from Indonesia and there we have small ants that smell like shit…

      • Akasazh@feddit.nl
        0·
        9 months ago

        Those who have have had a different day of taste buds. With insects you’re supposed to eat the exo skeleton, which is crunchy, but not nice. Then the meat is a bit nutty, is ok but the texture is off putting imho. Maybe eating your shrimp unpeeled would be a good equivalent.

        • WetBeardHairs@lemmy.ml
          0·
          9 months ago

          I eat shrimp unpeeled. Learned to do it from Vietnamese restaurants. It’s not bad! It saves a shitton of time peeling them, the spices are usually on the outside so you get more flavor, and the shell gives a nice crunch. I don’t eat the tailfins tho that’s dumb. They’re hard, pointy, and have no meat.

          That said… I advocate for finding ways to incorporate insects into western diets. I think we need to start a program to breed them for purpose though. Just like how bananas used to be small and full of seeds but were bred to what they are today. Breed a grubworm or something to be better eatin’ and grow them in huge quantities. But no way am I eating a roach.

    • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
      0·
      9 months ago

      This is my thing as well.

      If they had shrimp sized grasshoppers that came peeled and deveined, heads removed…with a nice sauce to go with it?

      I’d at least try it.

    • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
      0·
      9 months ago

      Some of the offal is quite delicious IMO. Like the scallop’s skirt (where the eyes are) surrounding the meat, and gonad (the orange or white sac) are great, and don’t actually have any sort of fishy taste if that’s not your thing.

      I watched a yt clip of a scallop boat in the US where the guy was cleaning the scallops by cutting out the meat and throwing the rest away and it just seemed so wasteful! A lot of countries don’t throw the rest of it away.

      • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
        0·
        9 months ago

        Some of the offal is quite delicious IMO.

        Japanese cuisine contends that offal, like fish liver, is sometimes the best part. Monkfish comes to mind. Also, some people really like crawfish and lobster liver.

        Hot take: Blue crab offal is where some of the aroma and flavor comes from when you steam them. Especially the “mustard” (although that’s not recommended these days - see “bio-accumulation”). The innards, except the gills, are fantastic stacked on a saltine with some Old Bay seasoning and vinegar on top.

        • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
          0·
          9 months ago

          In Japan they call the crab or lobster liver (the tomalley) miso, I guess because it looks like miso (well, lobster tomalley doesn’t really because it’s green, but they’re not native to Japan anyway). It’s not uncommon to find the gunkan style sushi with crab miso at a lot of shops.

  • Shenanigore@lemm.ee
    0·
    9 months ago

    crustaceans and insects are two different things, not real complicated. The crustaceans have actual meat, not a fluid filled exoskeleton.

    • OrangeJoe@lemm.ee
      0·
      9 months ago

      I dunno… Have you ever opened a crab up before cooking it? It’s pretty much all goo inside an exoskeleton.

    • owen@lemmy.ca
      0·
      9 months ago

      Large bugs definitely have some meat on them. Chomp on a large beetle and you will see

    • BRBWaffles@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      While it is inaccurate to characterize crustaceans as bugs, they are arthropods and share an enormous amount of anatomical and psychological features with insects. Both have open circulatory systems and use hemolymph to hydraulically operate their limbs. That “meat” that you’re talking about is only really visible after cooking, and consists mostly of denatured and congealed hemolymph.

        • BRBWaffles@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          9 months ago

          Insects also have muscles in certain locations throughout their bodies. You’ll find the exact same structures in similarly structured insects, just on a smaller scale. Honestly I have no idea what you’re talking about because they both have muscles and both have open circulatory systems, both will solidify into “meat” when cooked. I’m not sure what you’re suggesting meaningfully distinguishes them here other than their taxonomic classifications and their size.