No Bugs, Milady

In full Marie Antoinette mode, The United Nations has proclaimed, “Let them eat bugs!” The international organization is advocating the protein-rich diet to deal with feeding an exploding global population and addressing growing environmental concerns.

Variety of Insects

To accommodate the 9 billion people who will supposedly inhabit Earth by 2050, we need to double current food production. Because land is scarce, expanding the area devoted to farming is rarely a viable or sustainable option. Oceans are already over fished. To meet the food and nutritional challenges of today and feed the nearly one billion chronically hungry people worldwide, we need to find new sources of food. The idea is that we must stop obliterating insects and eat them instead. More than two billion people already regularly consume insects as food. We Westerners don’t because of a cultural distaste which is considered to be irrational by the rest of the world.

I’m with Jessica. A bug is a bug, even if it’s covered in chocolate.

If you’re on a diet, 100 grams of cricket yield 121 calories, 12.9 grams of protein, 5.5 grams of fat, 5.1 grams of carbohydrates, and 75.8 milligrams of calcium. Other insects scoring high in nutritional content include silkworm pupae, bamboo caterpillars, wasps, Bombay locusts, and scarab beetles. Pass me the fried tarantulas, please.

Locust Kabobs

It’s nearly time for the seventeen year locusts to emerge. I suppose could follow the example of the man in Columbus, Missouri, who covered boiled cicadas with brown sugar and milk chocolate into a new ice cream flavor. He sold out before the health department made him stop production. Anyone up for Locust Lovers Delight?

While researching this article, I found a list of thirty-seven insects which are edible. I won’t name them all, but suffice it to say that any food group consisting of tasty critters including cockroaches, centipedes, slugs, dung beetles, lice, worms, grubs, and walking sticks will not make my Pinterest board of “Favorite Recipes.”

To end on a positive note, if we were all reduced to eating insects as a main staple of our diets, I don’t think obesity would be a problem anymore.

And more on bacon …

What is there about bacon? No idea, but here’s another lovely, imaginative example of its versatility:

Need I say more?

UPDATE: Would adding these to the table be going overboard?

From the blog, Be Different, Act Normal

Take care–Susan Kaye

Good news for bacon lovers!

Perhaps Austen was onto something when she had Emma Woodhouse send Mrs. and Miss Bates a hindquarter of pork. One of my favorite lines belongs to Miss Bates as she exclaims to Emma, “What a happy porker it must have come from!” She then shrieks at her hearing-impaired mama, “PORK, Mother!”

This is Australian National Bacon Week, and it occurs to me that Ponce de Leon could have saved himself a great deal of time and expense spent searching for the Fountain of Youth. The secret to long life probably lolled happily in a mud hole on a nearby farm. (Hence the old saying, “Happy as a pig in slop.”)

It’s BACON!

According to the Huffington Post, a 105-year-old Texas woman says the secret to her longevity is bacon. She became a widow at age 38, reared 7 children alone, and worked as everything from a cotton picker to a hay baler. I’m not surprised that she didn’t credit her long life to getting plenty of sleep.

“I love bacon. I eat it everyday,” Pearl Cantrell told NBC affiliate KRBC when asked her secret to living so long. “I don’t feel as old as I am. That’s all I can say.”

I admire this woman, a great-great-grandmother who still enjoys country dancing, waltzing, and two-stepping, and who kept mowing her own lawn until the age of 100.

When Oscar Mayer heard about Pearl’s love of cured pork, they sent one of its Wienermobiles to her home with a special bacon delivery. She rode “shot-bun” in the Wienermobile through her hometown.

I’m stopping short of advocating that our readers follow Mrs. Cantrell’s example. Most doctors would advise people to avoid the high-fat meat. Even so, I’m also not a person who thinks people should give up foods that they absolutely love. Perhaps moderation is the key?

Just another day in Peponi

“Peponi” is Swahili for “paradise,” and since the music of The Piano Guys is heavenly, I think their rendition of Coldplay’s song improves on the original. I like the African connection; Peponi School is an international secondary school in Ruiru, Kenya, which produces student excellence in both academics and a huge variety of sports. Teachers and pupils have massive input into the school. Peponi School was founded 1989, and its goal has been to “take out the inner pupil.”

Many places are referred to as “peponi” in Africa. The Peponi Hotel in Shela, Lamu, Kenya, is well known for laid-back charm. The food is both simple and legendary. Critics recommend the giant prawns in butter sauce, eaten Swahili-style, sitting round a big brass platter on the floor.

Prawns in butter sauce

Thanks, Mom!

 

Happy Mother’s Day!

Eat What You Want Day

WooHoo!! Talk about a holiday.

Reading a very short article on the web site Days of the Year dot com they mentioned this day gives us permission to recreate a recipe from our childhoods.

How about it? If you were so inclined, what dish or meal would you make to honor the day?

I have to be honest, I don’t really remember any favorite foods from my childhood. I remember epic battles over things I REFUSED to eat. Liver and onions anyone? I’ve always loved creating mashed potato dams to keep back the molten gravy from the villagers. I used to stir my ice cream until it was the consistency of soft serve. And, I usually sort colored candies like Skittles and M&Ms into their individual colors and eat them accordingly.

We will probably be having tortilla soup for dinner here at Casa de Kaye. It’s easy for me and most of the family likes it.

Back to the question, if you were creating a dish or meal from your childhood, what would it be?

Have a great weekend.

Take care–Susan Kaye

 

Food is a fluid concept right now

The week started out with my elderly modem peacefully transitioning to that great electronics recycler in the sky. So I was off the grid for a couple of days. I didn’t go nuts, I just sewed a couple of dresses for my granddaughter. I may take pics and post them.

Anyway, after allowing Verizon to give me a great deal on a new hot spot, and pay them $99, I am back in our cyber society. I was panicking yesterday and apologizing to Robin for not posting, blah, balh, blah. I was thanking her for posting in my place, blah, blah, blah. She said, “I thought THURSDAY was you day to post.”

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Well maybe not mine, buy you catch my meaning.

Using my new Wi-Fi hot spot, I found this last night:

“Look, Ma, no hands!”

Now is this cute or what? A blue ribbon to this person for the most imaginative use of crockery.

My husband and I are prone to digging into thing like this. Who was the first to do this? And was there alcohol involved? (There’s no saying this isn’t coffee and someone was trying to sober up.) Was it a parent? Is this a family tradition? A rite of passage in an ancient culture? Who knows. Regardless of origin, I think it’s great.

And try this at home. Tell me how it works out.

Take a cue from this creative soul and have an inventive Thursday.

Take care–Susan Kaye