July 14, 2020

"Bloated with eggs and ready to reproduce, the brown, cockroach-sized queens are prized for their rotund, pea-shaped bottoms, which can taste like peanuts, popcorn..."

"... or even crispy bacon when roasted and salted. 'For me, the flavour is unique,' said Higuera, while plucking the papery wings off ants that filled a small pot on her kitchen table. 'It reminds me of my past. I remember one time when my grandfather bought a barrel full of them and you could hear them all crawling inside. The whole family sat around it preparing them one by one.'... Wearing ankle-high rubber boots and long sleeves for protection, collectors must work quickly because the soldier ants of the colony, who are tasked with protecting the queens from predators, can inflict painful bites that draw blood. Villagers scattered in the fields deposit the mouth-watering queens into anything at hand – bags, jugs, pots, sacks – working frantically through the daylight hours.... 'That’s the reason why us baricharas (locals) usually live long, healthy lives,' said Cecilia González-Quintero, a shopkeeper who has been preserving and selling the ants in glass jars for 20 years. 'The ants give us a special strength – [especially] the ones with the juicy culonas (big butts).'"

From "Could eating ants help us live longer?/Crunchy and curvy, these ample-bottomed queen ants are as prized in Colombia as caviar. But to find them, you’ll have to make it past thousands of soldier ants" (BBC).

35 comments:

Joe Smith said...

Welcome to the Green New Menu, brought to you by socialism and poverty.

Wince said...

I prefer eating uncles, with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

YoungHegelian said...

Ant Jemima??!!

Big Mike said...

YoungHeyelan beat the rest of us to it. Dang you!

gspencer said...

And I thought that nothing could be less appealing than haggis.

bobby said...

Maybe the next generation could consider this. For the rest of us, there are societal norms ingrained into us by about age five. Eating bugs lies outside of what Americans consider acceptable, and no amount of "ooo, tasty!" articles and vids are going to change that.

Mountain Maven said...

Do they recycle these articles from the 60's?

walter said...

Sir Mix-a-Lot is on-board.

gpm said...

I want to throw up.

--gpm

Mattman26 said...

I once had a Colombian roommate who would keep a jar of them in the fridge. Looked like bumble bees. Never noticed their bottoms.

And Ant Jemima is the best thing that’s happened today.

Josephbleau said...

In Mexico ant caviar is considered a delicacy. To me I don’t really taste anything great about it, but it does not kill you.

Known Unknown said...

If the headline is a question, you know the answer.

RobinGoodfellow said...

Used to work with a guy from Brazil—Fabio. Always going on about ant butts. “Ant butts are delicious!” “My sister in Brazil is sending me some ant butts!”

He brought some in one day. Ant butts mixed with rice. I tasted it. Pretty nasty, and I consider myself pretty open minded about food. No thanks.

n.n said...

Save the ants! Spare the kale.

Narr said...

Antypasto?

Narr
I'll be back

mockturtle said...

When I read "Bloated with eggs", I couldn't help but think of Cool Hand Luke.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Ant Teefa

In Eden, I insist I was the First Ant. Of this I am adamant.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

He brought some in one day. Ant butts mixed with rice. I tasted it. Pretty nasty

Try some ant-ass-id

William said...

Fat assed queen ants, the pleasures of eating them, and the difficulties of hunting them. I'm sure this is a metaphor for something.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Damn! Sorry dude! I mean, like, all you zipper-heads look alike!
I thought you were that racist homophobe Ngo !

BLM Supporters Celebrate Death of Mother Shot Dead For Saying “All Lives Matter"

https://summit.news/2020/07/13/blm-supporters-celebrate-death-of-mother-shot-dead-for-saying-all-lives-matter/

All Lives Matter. Please dont shoot me in the head.

Skeptical Voter said...

Well Jane Goodall supposedly learned that chimpanzees could use tools by observing a chimpanzee sticking a blade of grass into either an ant hill or a termite mound and withdrawing a tasty insect on the end of the blade of grass.

And down in Oaxaca and other parts of Southern Mexico they eat fried crickets. Here in Los Angeles you can get them at Oaxacan restaurants where they are known as chapulines. I once made the mistake of ordering some--the bodies are crunchy but the legs tend to stick in your teeth. Once was enough.

madAsHell said...

This story always ends with......"No, No! I insist!! You have the first bite!!"

Tom T. said...

"That’s the reason why us locals usually live long, healthy lives," said the rural Bolivian shopkeeper. "Why, some of us live to be almost 50!"

MikeR said...

No thanks

Ex-Men said...

I actually live in Bucaramanga, Colombia, the largest city in Santander. Though sounding disgusting, the ants, cooked properly, are actually quite tasty. And I’m Chicago-bred, so I ordinarily gravitate toward a more bovine-based diet. I guess hormigas culonas are one of those don’t knock ‘em until you’ve tried ‘em kinds of things.

Clyde said...

Wherever you find people eating insects, it's almost invariably because they are so impoverished that they don't have access to better, more efficient sources of protein. I don't want to live in a country that is so poor that we can't afford beef, pork, poultry and fish.

As an aside, I saw an ad on Facebook for fried salmon skins, comparing their nutritional value vs. potato chips. No, thanks. I like potato chips just fine.

stevew said...

Nope, too old to start eating bugs. So old, in fact, that I couldn't make it through the entire excerpt without becoming thoroughly disgusted.

tastid212 said...

Blogger Josephbleau said...
In Mexico ant caviar is considered a delicacy. To me I don’t really taste anything great about it, but it does not kill you.

Right, in Mexico ant larvae are a seasonal delicacy. A Mexican businesswoman once ordered them for me at a restaurant where we went for lunch. Looked like a tray of rice krispies in oil. Had to eat them or lose face - gulp!

tastid212 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
whitney said...

Eat the bug peasant!

Jamie said...

I've got no particular animus against insect protein - but yeah, where people eat a lot of them, it's generally because they have to. Making a virtue of necessity.

Faced with starvation, I'd eat bugs. Faced with a well-prepared plate of them in a social context, I'd be polite and try them. But the number of times I've tried a local food, well-prepared and considered a delicacy, and found it actually delicious to my palate is dwarfed by the number of times I've found it at best meh. So my expectations wouldn't be high.

mikee said...

In every country I've traveled to, on business, there comes a meal where the hosts present local specialties to the unsuspecting visitor. Usually there are claims of increased sexual endurance, greater strength for work, or just a wonderful unique taste sensation. Sometimes the stuff is great, sometimes not so great. I've been pleasantly surprised more often than not, and recall only one sushi dish of raw abalone - tough as shoe leather - that was truly hard to get down. The local alcohol always helps!

Nichevo said...



As an aside, I saw an ad on Facebook for fried salmon skins, comparing their nutritional value vs. potato chips. No, thanks. I like potato chips just fine.


The ones at Costco with eggs are too sweet.

TestTube said...

Fat bottom ants, they make the rockin' world go round...

RigelDog said...

I'm not THAT interested in prolonging my allotted days on this earthly plane...