You may remember an old Burger King commercial from the 1970s in which the lovely young counter employee sang: “Hold the lettuce and pickles. Special orders won’t bother us.” We only ask that you allow us to serve your order.
In 21st century America, however, the dominant doctrine is a lot like the sign that hung above the bar of a place where I would frequent when I was a bachelor: “This ain’t Burger King.” You will get it MY WAY or you will not get the son of a b***h.
I knew the family and it was a great place. The sign made me laugh, as did their sense of humor. It could still be up there. I would love that sign, if the owner is reading this.
We are still not at the stage where Americans will eat bugs, or “not get the son-of a-b***h” at all. In a similar way to how EVs are marketed to us, as something that all enlightened individuals drive, the Overton Insect Window is slowly being pushed to make eating insects not only possible and acceptable, but also preferable to a human-like diet.
The New York Strip will eventually go the same way as the internal combustion motor. It is more of an nudge for now. When will you join the hipsters and smart kids at the table of cool kids with a plate full of insects?
Tiffany Leigh, the writer at Insider, is the latest to join the multi-legged food bandwagon. She wrote: “Crickets provide a good source of protein. I added them to the food for my baby, and she loved them.” They are not only delicious, but also an inexpensive way to reduce your grocery bills.
Crickets are also rich in vitamins and protein. Leigh enjoys whole crickets, cricket cheese puffs, and even cricket powder in her mac and cheese.
The “shrimp scene”, from Forest Gump, keeps coming to mind. Except crickets:
Cricket hash, cricket gumbo, cricket casserole, fried crickets, baked crickets, cricket souffle, cricket cake, cricket sundaes, cricket burgers, cricket pot roast, cricket sauce, cricket nachos, cricket flambe, poached crickets, crickets over-easy.
You get the idea.
Leigh wants to include ants, grasshoppers and worms in the family’s menu. If that doesn’t do the trick, she could always open a lure shop.
Outside of human flesh, I believe that people should eat what they like. It’s up to the individual whether they choose to eat arthropods or insects. I once tried eating bugs. I tried to eat fried crickets once in Cambodia, but I refused to eat whole fried spiders. My tarantula was not fully cooked, and it was still moving. Let’s face it, even cultures that eat bugs have other options, such as meat. Mark my words: the day will soon come when eating ze bugs will be mandatory, regardless of your taste.
The idea of eating bugs is not offensive. It’s the fact that we will be forced to smile while we slide cricket burgers on the grill at the family barbecue if families still exist. You’ll either have to do as they say or else you won’t be getting the son of a b***h.
The bugs don’t bother me. The arrogance.
