Eating a fine selection of insects in Andalusia!
I've been staying in an organic farm/desertification program in Andalusia called "Sunseed" for the past four weeks. Sunseed being a vegetarian no-meat place, less-than-ideal substitutes such as grains and legumes are present at practically every meal. I've been trying to eat the greens and non-grain carbs alone, supplementing with some avocados bought in the nearest village, but have fell for the occasional lentil and rice burger from time to time. Too many times, I feel.
I had already been thinking about one day foraging for edible insects before coming here, and was pleasantly surprised when I realized that a lot of fruits we picked were either full of ants, or fruit-fly maggots.
The ants can sometimes taste acidic when they release their defence liquids, and even spicy when they try and bite you in the mouth.
The maggots were nice and fatty, but too many made the fruit taste unpleasantly vinegary from their digestive juices.
I had noticed plenty of crickets, and a grasshopper once, but never thought about eating them until a young French guy told me about how he would capture them in Southern France with a friend and fry them up.
I was not afraid to eat them here because the area is quite pristine, and the first big olive plantations are quite far away. As a safety measure, I have decided to remove their digestive tracks by simply pulling their head from the abdomen - the rest follows quite smoothly.
I first tried a grasshopper, raw of course, but didn't eat it wholly because I didn't know these small maggot-looking yellow bits were really supposed to be there. Haven't eaten another since, because they are quite hard to come across.
I have eaten three crickets till this day. They are hard to locate, as they are green and hide in the middle of green plants, but they are worth the effort. I find they taste like crunchy meat bits with a moist marinated turkey middle. Their digestive track is not bad either - a bit spicy, but I'd rather avoid it in case the insect has been eating too much pesticide-ridden plants.
