The Common Woodlouse, Oniscus asellus, an ingredient for a delicious sauce? I kid you not... (I know it's not an insect, but it's included in the book as you'll soon read!)

It is a quaint little book which was written to enrich the diets of the poor and is composed of 99 pages, which are divided into three sections: the first, ‘Why Not?’, gives arguments for eating herbivorous insects; the second, ‘Insect Eaters’, provides examples of insects eaten in antiquity and those nations, in modern times, which are called uncivilized; and the third, ‘Insects Which Are Good To Eat, And Something About Their Cooking’, gives some recipes and suggested menus. One such menu is:

Menu

Snail Soup
Fried Soles, with Woodlouse Sauce
Curried Cockchafers
Fricassée of Chicken with Chrysalids

Boiled Neck of Mutton with Wireworm Sauce
Ducklings, with Green Peas
Cauliflowers garnished with Caterpillars
Moths on Toast

Whilst some recipes (of sorts) are given, you are not told how to prepare moths on toast. I wonder which moths he was suggesting make a suitable cheese subsitute… As you can see from the delightful menu above, Holt does cover other invertebrates in the book, including molluscs and spiders.

Bear with me here, but I’m almost tempted to try the woodlouse sauce, because Holt writes the following:

I have eaten these, and found that when chewed, a flavour is developed remarkably akin to that so much appreciated in their sea cousins. Wood-louse sauce is equal, if not distinctly superior to, shrimp.

My family were slightly less enthusiastic about trying some of the recipes, but I am sure some of you are more adventurous! Recipes will follow…

Reference:
Holt, V.M. (2007) WHY NOT EAT INSECTS? Whitstable, Pryor Publications Whitstable and Walsall.
Note: The original was book was published in 1885. The version I have is a fascimile.