7-30-01, Danny McBride, 733 words
Diet of Worms
By Danny McBride
IPS Features
Worms is a an old Rhine town significant in religious history. It was there in 1521 that Martin Luther refused to recant his writings and teachings and therefore defied both Emperor Charles V and Pope Leo X. The Diet of Worms (the Imperial German Reichstag) issued an edict against Martin Luther that set the stage for Luther to become the leading force in the division of Christendom and an early leader of The Reformation.
The Diet of Worms…Oh! Wait a minute…That’s not what this is about.
The diet of worms I mean is actually that- -WORMS!! Larva. Bugs. Slimy things. Crawly things. YUM!!
According to a recent Associated Press story by Russ Bynum datelined Statesboro, Georgia, and printed in many newspapers, a professor named Frank French teaches a field biology course at Southern Georgia University which “requires his students to prepare and eat a dish made with bugs, weeds and other wild things people might stomp or spray, but seldom swallow” in order to get a passing grade in his course. The AP story says Professor French especially enjoys termites and beetle larvae.
“Apple for the teacher, Professor French?”
“No thanks. I’ll just eat this green wiggly thing sticking out of this hole near the stem.”
The article goes on to say how different students prepared various dishes culminating in a cumulative culinary cookoff- -A repast to pass the class. (Whatever else they passed was not mentioned in the article.)
Professor French is quoted as saying “The reason they (beetle larvae) taste good is because they’ve got a real high fat content”. Sort of like Snickers. “In the old hunter-gatherer societies, when you got something with that fat in it, it was like dessert.” Sort of like Twinkies.
Can you picture a small roadside diner somewhere in Georgia?
“Hon, yawl wont sum pah’n’cawfee, or woodja prefer a piece o’ choc’late larvae cake?”
“Well, Ma’am, I’m afraid I’m plum full up from the stew. What exactly was in that?”
“The Jumbo Gumbo? Ah dunno, but it’s the cleanest the kitchen’s ever been. Ain’t seen one cockroach all day.”
Professor French not only wants his students to learn to identify plants and critters in the wild, he wants them to realize that many of them are perfectly edible, even tasty.
The AP story says that since most of the indigenous ingredients are not found at the local grocery store (duh!!) most students plucked them fresh from the overgrown campus greenery.
“Say, Bob, shouldn’t we oughta get that grass mowed and them bushes cut back?”
“Naw. Professor French’s class’ll be out here soon enough to graze.”
One student went to a nearby lake to pick cattails to make cattail pasta, while others made dishes like dandelion fried rice, quiche made with catbrier vine instead of spinach and iced tea brewed from acorns. Snapple that.
The hit of the meal was the Cricket Cake. Class member Najauna Dorsey went to a bait shop and bought 50 live crickets. She let them feed on an apple slice for a day to clean out their systems (yeah, like this matters) and then, Zap! She froze the little Jiminys to make removing their little heads, legs, wings and antennae easier, and then she chopped them into little pieces and baked them on a cookie sheet. I know you’re mouth is watering now. She used a fairly standard cake recipe her mother had using flour, eggs, sugar and all the rest of the normal ingredients, but substituted the crickets for the pecans the recipe called for. Hold me back, I’m going for seconds. She was quoted as saying “It’s a lot of work. I’d much rather have used pecans.” Really? One classmate said “You got something that should have been a nut but it was a cricket. But it was really good.” Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t. Of course sometimes you really don’t.
Several questions arise: Why would anyone take this course? Is it, like, an easy bee? What are the prerequisites? Home Eck? Or maybe something just bugs you. Or you thought you were signing up for a course on the history of animation and Bugs Bunny, and it turns out that bugs bunny is the main course alright. Insect inside. It brings new meaning to the term “book worm.” Stop me before I go nuts! Or is that crickets?
Okay. I don’t think I’m ever going to get hungry again, especially for French food. As long as I keep thinking about Professor French, I’ll think of Professor French food.
Yuck!
Okay. Maybe just French fries.
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