The first bug Daniella Martin remembers eating was a chapulín (roasted and spiced grasshopper) in Oaxaca, Mexico. "It tasted like a burnt crisp," she recalls. "I can say I wasn't particularly impressed." But over the past eight years Martin has eaten wasp larvae in Japan, launched an insect cooking programme and written the book Edible: An Adventure into the World of Eating Insects. In his spare time, he loves to cook the hakuna omelette, made with mushrooms, eggs and moth larvae, spider rolls, made with tarantula tempura, cucumber and avocado, or the Bee-LT, a wasp larvae sauté sandwich. If you are curious to experience this type of cuisine, here are seven places to order an insect dish.
Some of Mexico's traditional dishes include insects © Fitopardo.com / Getty Images
Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium - New Orleans
Ready for creative snacks at Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium? Delicacies such as chocolate biscuits and crickets, crispy cajun crickets, mango and apple chutney with wax grubs, six-legged sauce and cinnamon bug crisp. In busy weeks, 10,000 insects are consumed at the Insectarium. Incredible, isn't it? You can enjoy these insect delicacies at any time of the year, but remember that there is a special Thanksgiving event here in November where they prepare revised versions of traditional dishes: turkey stuffed with cornbread and flour moths, cranberry sauce and waxworms, pumpkin pie and crickets.
Linger - Denver
Linger is a trendy restaurant in Denver's Lower Highlands neighbourhood that uses insects from the Rocky Mountain Micro Ranch, Colorado's first and only edible insect farm that raises them for resale to wholesale, restaurants and food manufacturers. Binge on Thai Sausage Mi Krop, an Asian-inspired gluten-free dish made with spiced pork, ants, crickets, crispy rice noodles, turmeric, chilli and nuoc cham tomato sauce. Also want an insect snack to eat at another time? You can order chirpy jerky (a dried meat-like snack that actually contains powder and cricket pieces) or Micro Ranch's roasted crickets online.
Queso del Rancho is one of Xochi's popular dishes © Courtesy of Xochi
Xochi - Houston
For a high protein meal, order the queso del rancho at Xochi, a Houston restaurant that celebrates the flavours of Oaxaca, Mexico. It's a delicious concoction of homemade queso de cincho, chicharrones and a trio of insects: gusanos (a type of grubs), chicatanas (ants) and chapulines (grasshoppers), along with huaxmole rojo, a dish made with guaje seeds, similar to pumpkin seeds, garlic, avocado and okra. Or choose the bistec con mole de chicatana, or grilled prime Angus ribeye, black bean tamal and ant mole.
Recommended guides and products:
Playa Viva - Juluchuca, Mexico
Guests at Playa Viva, a luxury resort in Mexico, can join a tour of the 200-acre grounds with a permaculturist. First you will walk through a series of ecosystems lined with ancient tamarind and cactus trees. Then you will walk through a bamboo forest, passing huge Ceiba trees. Along the way, you will munch on some termites as they explain the role of these insects in the landscape and how their nests are used as fertiliser.
Sign up for our newsletter! For you weekly travel tips, special offers, stories from the world and 30% discount on your first order.
Sweet flour moths add an extra touch of sweetness to vanilla ice cream © Courtesy of Don Bugito / Lonely Planet
Don Bugito - San Francisco
Would anyone like some granola made with cricket flour? How about some crickets covered in dark chocolate and amaranth seeds. Or some crunchy coconut bugitos (toasted flour moths). For Monica Martinez, owner of the Don Bugito restaurant in San Francisco, working out insect snacks is child's play. After all, in Mexico City, where she grew up, people have been cooking insects since the Aztec Empire. Her delicious snacks are for sale online and Monica hosts a few events each year where she serves dishes like corn pudding and chinicuil, made with agave worms, corn and spicy tomato broth. There are also ahuautle tortitas, chironomid egg tortitas with a spicy poblano pepper sauce, and amaranth cake garnished with crispy flour moths and dark chocolate-covered mandarin segments.
Chapulines are the special ingredient of the Mexican restaurant Madre © Sarah Sekula / Lonely Planet
Madre - Torrance and Culver City, California
Chapulines also appear on the menu at Madre, a famous restaurant serving traditional Oaxaca dishes. Snack on insects by grabbing an appetiser or choose one of the main dishes, for example the corn tortilla with costra de quesillo, fresh guacamole, chapulines and salsa on the side.
In October, sample the bizarre flavours of Salt & Straw © Nolan Calisch / Salt & Straw
Salt & Straw - Portland, Oregon
Salt & Straw is a small Portland ice cream shop chain with 20 shops along the West Coast offering various flavours of ice cream made with insects every October. Ask master ice cream maker Tyler Malek for a scoop of matcha ice cream topped with orange and dark chocolate-covered crickets and crunchy coconut flour moths. What a crunch!