Black Bugs - for dinner?

In the WHAT WERE THEY THINKING! Department, I found that Tarantulas are famous tasty morsels in Central American countries. I can only imagine the furry legs tickling the throat as they wiggle their way into our stomachs. Wait, I really CANNOT imagine that. Tarantulas are scary, hairy, poisonous black bugs. Why would anyone want to eat black bugs, much less a big spider that crawls in the dirt? The main food source for tarantulas is other black bugs so by ingesting one tarantula, you would be ingesting a whole family of black bugs. No thanks.

As a child, I sat through the movie called Tarantula and had nightmares for months. The tarantula was of course a gigantic creature that was terrorizing families, just like mine, in communities, just like mine. It produced its silk that pooled up in vats of substance that looked like poi. I didn’t understand the goo at the time, but it may have been preparing itself to be tempura food back then. If you saw the movie today, you would laugh at me but that’s another story. Tarantulas are creepy and furry and they sting. They sting!

Below is a video of a guy who cooks bugs as a common practice. In this video he demonstrates how to slice and dice your favorite tarantula in order to make tarantula tempura. Does he really eat black bugs? How yummy this must be!



I thought this video was hysterically funny.

You can also find people harvesting, selling and eating tarantulas in common practice in Cambodia. There, the black tarantula spiders are considered to be a fine delicacy. The sheer volume of tarantulas they produce is astounding. They eat these furry black bugs on a daily basis. I wonder how that would change the face of other countries if black bugs were part of our typical diet. For instance, our school systems could offer fried black bugs to ensure our students grow up with plenty of protein and calcium in their bodies.

For me, I can only imagine the nightmares I would have had as a child if I was offered fried black bugs in my school cafeteria the day after I saw the Tarantula movie. Shudder.