Eating Insects
gregladen | January 15, 2013We were discussing insects. What about eating insects?
When it comes up that I've lived in the Central African Rain Forest, certain questions often come up, and one of them is: "Did you eat bugs?"
Every one has seen those National Geographic specials where some natives somewhere are eating insects, and of course, Westerners who think they generally don't eat insects are fascinated with the idea. However, Westerners eat a lot more insects than they think. You should really consider any processed food you eat that started out as a plant crop to be part insect. If what you are eating is…
gregladen | August 28, 2011Continuing with the theme of eating insects ...
The people of the eastern Congo plant African rice around June so that it will grow through the wettest part of the wet season, and then they harvest it in the "dry season" which starts about mid or late November. That is around the same time that a "locust" (actually a katydid of some sort) emerges in the grasslands to the north, in the Central African Republican and the Sudan, to spread across the region. And eat rice.
It is rather annoying to have locust descend on your crops. Some years it is not too bad, some years it is bad enough to…
gregladen | August 27, 2011From ants to aphids, mosquitoes to mantises, entomology blogger Bug Girl has covered all kinds of things that creep, crawl and fly. This week, she joins us to talk about her favorite bugs, and why she finds them all so fascinating. And anthropologist and blogger Greg Laden joins us to discuss the cultural taboos surrounding eating insects.
Go have a listen!
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Please visit the other posts in this series:
No Place to Sit Down
The reason the Efe won't normally kill an insect ...
"We Live In Little Houses Made of Beans"
"Excuse me, there's some food in my bugs!"
Bug Girl and Greg Laden…
gregladen | August 22, 2011Speaking of people eating insects ... as we were ... I do have this fun story from the Ituri Forest.
One day something funny happened. I was traveling in the most remote part of Central Africa, several days walk from any place you could possibly drive a car, visiting uncharted villages mainly occupied by people who had moved into the deep forest because they were in trouble with the "law" in some way (usually for perfectly good reasons in this lawless country). I was traveling with a Lese Villager and his sister, who was hired as our cook, and three Efe Pygmy men. We visited a village that…
gregladen | August 19, 2011I have written before of insects in the Ituri Forest. (Oh, and here too.) When it comes up that I've spent time there, certain questions often come up, and one of them is: "Did you eat bugs."
Every one has seen those National Geographic specials where some natives somewhere are eating insects, and of course, Westerners who think they generally don't eat insects are fascinated with the idea. Of course, Westerners eat a lot more insects than they think. You should really consider any processed food you eat that started out as a plant crop to be part insect. If what you are eating is made…
gregladen | August 18, 2011that has wandered into their camp if they don't know anything about it a priori is ... according to what they told me when that happened once ... is ...
Many, though certainly not all, insects are linked to important things in life. This is true of many things that are not insects as well. For instance, one does not walk to the right of a young male Canarium tree in the afternoon, because he who shall not be named could be sitting in the tree, and then you're screwed. Or, one should not handle the fetus of an antelope if any females in your family are planning on getting pregnant soon…
gregladen | August 18, 2011I knew a couple who had spent a lot of time in the Congo in the 1950s. He was doing primatology, and she was the wife of a primatologist. And when she spoke of the Congo or Uganda, where they spent most of the time, she always said two things that always put me off a little. First, she would Uganda and Congo as "Africa" (which is technically correct, but I've yet to hear of someone saying "I'll spend Spring Break in North America" on their way to Cancun) and she'd always say "The thing about Africa is that there's no place to sit down."
It turns out that there are plenty of chairs and…