I was excited by the buzz around eating insects – until I tried one

There’s a dish I once read about, a delicacy in the remote Faroe Islands, which is basically raw lamb, hung in drafty wooden sheds, and left to ferment, until green mould grows on it. A journalist writing about this treat described it as having a flavour “somewhere between Parmesan cheese and death”. Presumably, it’s an acquired taste.

As a rule, I prefer to eat food that isn’t actually rancid, but I also accept that what one considers delicious and wholesome is entirely subjective, a product of cultural expectations and individual taste. For example, I have all sorts of personal dietary quirks, foibles and preferences. I generally eschew glands, snouts, whole fish (particularly when the eyes are staring up at me), anything bony and sinewy, raw meats, and eggs that haven’t come from a chicken.

I’m sure there’ll be lots of people eye-rolling as they read this, lamenting my conservative palate and lack of culinary sophistication. In my defence, I’ll point out that there are some unconventional foods that I am eager to embrace. Edible insects, for example.

I first came across insects as a dietary option while on a brief stopover in Bangkok. I was pregnant at the time and in the grip of rampant listeria-phobia, obsessively avoiding any food that had even a one-in-a-billion chance of inducing miscarriage. Given this mindset, I hesitated to sample the deep-fried crickets being served up at various street stalls, but I was intrigued by the prospect.

Unlike mouldy lamb, the idea of insect appetisers was appealing to me. I imagined they’d taste a bit like crispy soft shell prawns, but without the risk of eating that black intestine thing that people always say is harmless but we all know is really a minuscule prawn-poo sausage.

Nutritionally, bugs are tiny powerhouses of protein, but what’s really great about insect-eating is that it’s ethical. Bugs don’t fart the way cows do, so even if they were farmed in vast numbers, there would be no methane going off into the atmosphere. They don’t graze on deforested land, either. And importantly, for my own sensibilities, they’re barely sentient, simply tiny chitinous robots, unable to look at you reproachfully as you prepare to gobble them up.

One obstacle to insects becoming a mainstay of our diets is the sheer volume needed to sufficiently nourish a human being. But I’ve been told that scientists are working on solving this problem. I only hope it does not involve genetically engineering dog-sized crickets. Suddenly, we’d be back grappling with identifiable innards again, not to mention all those compound eyes, glaring at me from my plate, accusingly.

Having said all this, I am sad to report that my enthusiasm for bug eating suffered a recent set-back, when I finally tasted the damn things.

Under present circumstances, a return visit to Bangkok was out of the question, but when I met some friends at a lovely local restaurant and noticed they had crickets on the menu, I insisted we order them. The dish duly arrived, but the arthropods in question were served with nuts, and smothered in various spices. This disappointed me, since the last thing I needed was loaded insects. I wanted them whole, and pure: fried perhaps, with just a dash of salt, but otherwise proud and unashamed.