This topic has gone pretty good in the mammal forum and now it is in the herp forum, so I thought I would bring it here! Let's go with one account per day and stories are not required, but greatly appreciated! Pictures are awesome as well!

I'll start it off with octopus. I know a lot of people eat them, but I caught mine:


I had a friend help me cook it up who was from Thailand, so we did it the way he liked it, which was a sweet and sour sauce with pineapple and of course it had to be spicy, it was Thai food after all! I've also had it boiled in salt water which was pretty good as well!

Josh

Well, this will be pretty tame compared to others: Live termites. In Kenya, some woman were beating the ground with sticks, and it was cloudy and humid and rain was coming. They explained they were fooling the termites into thinking it was raining (I just report'em folks...), and the termites respond with a nuptial flight. Thousands of winged termites emerged from underground, and the women enlarged the holes, lining them with leaves. This was slippery and the termites bent on exiting instead slipped down into the holes where the ladies had secreted a metal cup to catch them. They gathered several quarts of the winged insects. They had minimal taste, and you quickly learn how to spit out the wings. They were pretty bland...so fear not if you, like me, find it socially awkward to say No when sincere and sweet ladies offer you a cup of live termites...just make up your mind and eat them. I also had some stir fried with veggies, and they added some scarce protein, but only a crispy and very mild flavor.

Before, or after the helmet law?

I don't wanna talk about eating herps because the forum members might hunt me down and protest on my lawn or something, but bugs ... I once ate a large black cricket. It was very disgusting. I am talking about the taste, not the texture.

mmmmmm, inverts!!

Crickets-Not awful

Mealworms-totally appalling

A Moth- recommend removing the wings first...a mouth full of powder is really bad

Cicadas- Taste like sticks....go figure

And yes, to top it off, all were eaten alive.

Just the usual ones: Lobster, crab, ground-up cockroach. (Ah, instant coffee...)

JimM

No reptiles, just the usual inverts...sawtooth grain beetles, cigarette beetles, drugstore beetles, merchant beetles, rice weevils, granary weevils, Indian meal moths, etc.

live = meal worms, bark scorpion (no stinger of course), cricket, termites, ants, beetle grub, and Indian meal moth
prepared = meal worms, crickets, octopus, snail, crayfish, and lobster
by far my favorite are meal worms stir fried in garlic butter. My least favorite was lobster, but the worst was the octopus - the slimy skin was gaggy.

I have tried most available cultured live foods - the most disappointing were crickets and the most surprising were silkworms which reminded me of plain knox gelatine . The most disgusting was earthworm , to me it tasted like Alien Liver - Raw . The one that tasted the best was live artemia - strained through a net , it was fully oxygenated ruby red and I had one lump then had another.

Termites to me seem clean and appetizing and the last time I saw some I was very tempted to try it but something stopped me

If I remember correctly it was cooked crickets on the middle plate and something meatier to the right.


Cooked crickets, Siem Reap, Cambodia.

In Venezuela the Pemon indians made a sauce from ants and termites that was spicy due to the formic acid of the ants. It, as a sauce, was actually very good. I did not like the texture of the large ants however.