The one insect-based food in Japan that is moderately common is tsukudani (a type of soy-based pickle) made from crickets (enago), but even this is kinda niche and you're unlikely to run into it unless you look for it.
I once had grasshoppers (inago) cured with some sort of soy sauce marinate. Was that the same thing? They were pretty yummy, similar to eating little shrimps with shells and all.
The other insect I have tried was the dried larvae of silk worms, which are apparently quite popular in Korea. I found the taste of that one vile and repulsive. Hard to describe. Maybe it's an acquired taste, or perhaps I did not eat it in the right way. It can't be that bad if it is popular.
FWIW, I've also tried beondegi in Korea, and I agree with you. It was easily the least pleasant of the insects I've tried (locust, cricket, peanut worm, silkworm).
I'm from a culture where historically it's normal to do so.
Yet you may understand your argument wasn't very convincing.
..which is perfectly normal for many people? When I lived in China I visited Nanning frequently and they have a night market that is famous and popular for serving deep fried insects. Most of it is pretty good. You find insect based street-food in plenty of places across LatAm, Africa or Asia.
It's almost as if some people are trying to push the false narrative that eating bugs is perfectly normal for people in the corner of Florida where I grew up.
When stated like that, it doesn't make that much sense. No one would think it was normal in a place where it's not normal to do so, so probably no one is pushing that.
But I think you're right that there is some form of "food source environmental activism" related to bug-eating, but this article isn't about that, and doesn't have to be. I mean, take from it what you will, and I understand the triggered reactions to the connotations of "let's replace our menu with insect meat because environment", but I think that's an unnecessary fear-connotation in this case and is not warranted by the source material.
So you are suggesting these are the work of PR firms. I mean, maybe... like a corporate PR strategy to slowly normalize the eating of insects? Like I get the "insect meat enviro activism" angle, but I think it's possible to see this article as something that exists without that, independently of that.
I mean, it is kind of a culture-blind doubling-down to be so blind to the fact that other people (real people, not stock images in advertising campaigns) eat insects around the world...that you see any emanation of stories about these as part of a concerted PR strategy. Because maybe that fits your cultural-bias that "this stuff doesn't really happen so if we see it it has to be a corporate profit motive", right?
I mean, why can't it just be a story about another culture and what they do? Why need to get all judgey and like "from only your perspective thou shalt speak the truth" about it?
Personally I don't get the strong "immune" reactions I see here. Is it a sublimated expression of the visceral (but probably culturally relative) revulsion? Or like where is this coming from for you?
Like why can't it just be a story, why does it have to be propaganda for something? I'm curious. Please relate what's there for you, if you want! :P ;) xx ;p
Hey, but that's just my take! :P ;) xx ;p
I also didn't know the "insects for food" lobby was such a powerhouse as the view you invoked seems to suggest? Care to elaborate? I'm all ears, literally want to learn about this.
I saw Bill Gates in a video[1] just yesterday talking about how the rich nations should be eating synthetic meat, and of course the World Economic Forum are planning (apparently) to move everyone over to insects, while they dress like cartoon villains.
Do a quick search for "eat insects" on the BBC site, for example (the biggest news site in the UK) and you'll see they do regular stories with positive headlines like Eating insects: Should we be eating more? Why are they so good? (June this year), or the more insidious Why you may have been eating insects your whole life (April 2018). Seriously, do a search on some major media sites and it comes up again and again and again, especially left leaning media. In right leaning, it's obviously anti that.
As I say, I've not got a dog in this fight (if anything, I'm pro synthetic meat) but if you roll the "insects for food" lobby into the "climate change" lobby, and possibly the "oligarchy keeping the rest of us paupers" lobby and perhaps you'll think it has some power or perhaps it will cement for you that it's a silly conspiracy theory. Or it could simply be an overreaction to these stories, lots of people get emotional about food, it's part of identity, preference, and health, so a threat to it will provoke a reaction.
[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/14/1018296/bill-gat... Not the video, that was an Instagram story so it's gone but this is an interview with Gates about it
When they are eaten they tend to be cooked in a way to try to remove all flavor (such as heavy frying) and then served with copious amounts of a flavored side (and often alcohol as well). In the less impoverished areas, what bugs are sold are often ironically targeted at foreigners thinking they're engaging in an exotic cultural experience, even though few locals would care to share that 'culture' themselves!
From what I've learned when talking to friends in Thailand, it's the same with insects, it's a rural food (but not from hill tribe people or minorities just from less urbanised parts of Thailand), that's fallen out of favour with the upper middle class. That doesn't mean that only foreigners eat it, there are plenty of locals who eat it, it's just less common than it once was and is becoming less and less common.
In the case of grasshopper and cricket, you're right it's fried and food that goes well with alcohol but that doesn't mean that there's not taste or that it doesn't taste good. Crickets definitely have a very distinctive flavour and one that fits well with drinks in the same way that chips can be nice with apéritifs.
It seems insects are commonly eaten in many places, and I think it's possible your misinterpretation of "insect food only in poverty" is a hangup from this sort of "imperialist cultural supremacy" that seems to be invoked by this topic...
To riff a bit, not about you, but: sad really, maybe that real colonialism and imperialism has almost vanished in many places, the "descendents of the former subjects of the old colonial powers" and those who seek to ape their status, cling to these sort of last vestiges where they can lord their wrong ideas of cultural supremacy over "lesser peoples". Insect eating probably provides plenty of opportunities for those of such an imperial mind to turn plump with prideful glee that they have something really meaty to snack into about "how their own culture has made so much progress compared to these awfully-backward places".
Back to what you said: I think consciousness of judgement by non-locals may play a role in masking that behavior in front of you?
It sort of sounds like you're embarrassed by the idea that people might think that Japanese are somehow bad (maybe "backward and poor"?) for eating insects, but I think that's an unnecessary accommodation of Western-folks' possible biased misinterpretations... I mean I understand wanting to be conscious of that, but I don't think it's "good" to be like, "Oh, it's a bad thing, let not anyone think that we all eating insects or nothing".
It could even be a sort-of inter-East-Asian-racism like, "Don't let people lump us in together and think we are like those Chinese who eat insects way more than us".
Maybe, I got you wrong there, but you know what I mean? :p ;) xx ;p
> but something practiced in a couple of villages in Gifu prefecture
It could say "the Gifu prefecture tradition..." and still "actually only a couple of villages do it" would be valid, and so on and so on...
On the other hand the way we write headlines lends itself to misinterpretation deliberately. It could say "A few people in Japan eat wasps" but nobody would click.
With a lot of these expensive Chinese foods, there's an overlap with traditional Chinese medicine, as seen in bird's nest soup, black chicken meat, and such. And indeed, they convinced her to try one, saying that cicada are great for health and such. She felt guilty given that it was such an expensive dish, so she tried one. Reliving that memory made her feel nauseous.