After school last Wednesday, I watched my five-year-old daughter pop a dead cricket on to her tongue and proclaim it: ‘Like fishy popcorn!’ ‘MMMm, delicious!’ squealed her friend, reaching for more as a third little girl spat hers, discreetly, back into her palm. ‘I’m getting pistachio,’ said the spitter’s mum, picking up the packet for closer scrutiny. I popped one into my own mouth and got stale, mealy, chewy: like a morsel of dusty, old crab-paste sandwich.
I bought the edible Acheta domesticus at my local farm shop. They were stacked, like a drinking bet, above the local gins under a sign reading: ‘Sharing for the Daring.’ Mealworms with Sesame and Cumin; Grasshoppers with Paprika and Crickets with Sweet Mango.