Bug Eating Cookbooks – The Reviews
The Eat a Bug Cook Book
by David G. Gordon
ISBN = 0898 159776
Price = $12.95
Published = June 15 1998
Review written = 2/August/1998
136 A4 pages
8 Color Plates, Numerous B/W figures
Most of humanity has happily munched insects for most of our history. It is only recently that we in the West have given up the habit. However such a pleasant and ecologically friendly habit cannot be completely submerged beneath our decadent fantasies of superiority, and an undercurrent of emtomophagy has persisted even in the west. Recently with the publication of regular issues of the “Insects as Food” Newsletter, and various Bug Banquets, eating bugs has begun to regain some of its inevitable f(l)avour. The culmination to date of this resurgence is the publication of this witty and informative recipe book by David G. Gordon, he of the “Compleat Cockroach” fame.
It is concomitant as the reviewer to point out errors in a publication, however few or insignificant, in order to prove he has actually read the work. So let me point out that on page 83, line 7 “Giant Water Bugs” are erroneously called Beetles despite being correctly called “Bugs” before and after this.
The book is written with David’s inimitable charm and wit and will be a fun present to give to friends and family, or even just to leave in a well visible place on the night you have invited the boss and his wife over for a meal, even if you are serving vertebrates only.
I have not had a chance to try all the recipes but I have enjoyed spicy Mexican Grasshoppers before and look forward to trying some of the 33 recipes in this book as soon as I can get something more than crickets and mealworms here in the UK.
The book is lavishly illustrated including 8 whole page colour plates of set meals. It is also informative on subjects like; “how many insects parts can be found in the average peanut butter and jelly sandwich”. All in all another excellent book well worth the meagre price of $12.95 for the fun and palatable pleasure it brings.Highly Recommended
Buy the Eat-a-bug Cookbook at Amazon.com
The Compleat Cockroach
by David G. Gordon
It’s all part of The Compleat Cockroach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Most Despised (and Least Understood) Creature on Earth, published by Ten Speed Press of Berkeley, California.
Buy Here: The Compleat Cockroach
Lavishly illustrated with line drawings, movie posters, photos, and artwork, The Compleat Cockroach provides an unforgettable introduction to the insect so many people love to loathe:
Cockroach Biology: Where the world’s 4,000 roach species live, what they eat, and why some have chosen to make our homes their homes.
Cockroach Behavior: How roaches sing for their supper, sleep upside down, and battle each other, plus all the details of their steamy love lives.
Cockroach Control: Effective strategies for keeping roaches at bay– an arsenal of environmentally friendly alternatives to the atomic bomb.
Cockroach Culture: from Aristophanes to Archy, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis to MTV– the rich legacy of roaches in song, dance, and contemporary cuisine.
Over the course of 196 pages, readers of The Compleat Cockroach are treated to:
A day at Roachhill Downs, site of the roach races at Purdue University
An official tour of the Cockroach Hall of Fame
An encounter with the world’s biggest cockroach
The history of the 1960s craze, The Roach Dance
Profiles of prominent cockroaches– stowaways on Spanish galleons, hitchhikers aboard the Apollo XII lunar module, inhabitants of forests and fields, and invaders of kitchens, bedrooms and baths .. and much, much, more.
David George Gordon is an award-winning nature writer, he’s the author of ten books on North American wildlife. His work has appeared in Outside, Wildlife Conservation, Reader’s Digest and USA Today. The New York Times called his Field Guide to the Slug “gripping,” citing its “almost breathtaking” account of snail sex.
Gordon has served as a staff biologist at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington, and the world-famous Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. As an author and public speaker, he has entertained audiences throughout the Northwestern United States and Canada, extolling the virtues of such exotic fauna as Bigfoot, the banana slug and the geoduck– the world’s largest burrowing clam.
The Compleat Cockroach is priced at $11.95 (U.S.). To purchase a copy, contact your local bookseller (in the United Kingdom the book is distributed by Airlift Books). Or order directly from Ten Speed Press, P.O. Box 7123, Berkeley, California 94707 telephone: (510) 559-1600.
David George Gordon can be reached at his office in Port Townsend, Washington, at (360) 385-5063 (e-mail [email protected])
“many a cockroach believes himself as beautiful as a butterfly” “have a heart o have a heart and let them dream on” — archy
Highly Recommended
