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This book is for everyone who thinks that eating insects is disgusting.
If this is the premise of Roberto Flore, on new book "On Eating Insects," it's fair to assume the topic should attract an extensive audience. Totalling over 300 pages, he's talking about the first publication from the Nordic Food Lab on entomology, as well as the final milestone in what has proven an extensive project on the topic.
The Copenhagen based nonprofit organisation started out studying insects in 2012, on a trip to discover Sardinian casu marzu, where the team also got to know Italian chef Flore, who is now head chef of the laboratory, as well as co-author of On Eating Insects, Essays, Stories and Recipes, along with Josh Evans and director Michael Bom Frøst.
"We want to make it clear how much beauty there is in the insect as an ingredient in cooking," Flore explains, "insects are part of the world's gastronomic heritage. The book collates the stories, anecdotes and research that we have collected around the world, from Japan to Thailand. And then of course, there are the recipes."
Recipes are not the classics like, "biscuits with dehydrated larvae", where the insects are inserted for show rather than specific utility, but they highlight some elaborate preparations – some even doable at home – with a huge level of detail that references different cultures and different traditions. "It is not an entirely scientific book or completely gourmet. It's a trip around the world in which the insects become a way to authentically explain a territory."
On Eating Insects is available for pre-order from Phaidon, due out May 2017
See the trailer for the feature length-documentary film BUGS by Andreas Johnsen.
