Florida Keys Lobster Season … Or Let Them Eat Bugs
As I sat and dined and quipped in a favorite Key West lobster restaurant with my friend Dink, he asks me, “Have you ever eaten a bug … I mean before now?” “What do you mean before now?” I ask. There’s no way I’m going to buy that line of ‘buggity bull’ from a guy who loves to tease me by stating the obvious. Then I start remembering the chocolate covered ants my brother Mark convinced me to eat when I was a little girl. And that reminds me of the roasted roaches my friend Jack told me he was served in Thailand couple of years ago. And then as my taste buds settle back into the shrimp cocktail and juicy grilled lobster tail with drawn key lime butter I’m indulging in, it dawns on me that I am, in fact, eating delicious bugs at that very moment!
In case you haven’t yet been served up this hard cold fact, there’s a reason that residents of the Florida Keys call Atlantic lobsters ‘bugs.’ Like insects, the American lobster (or Homarus americanus) is actually an Arthropod, which means they belong to the same invertebrate phylum as grasshoppers, spiders, and even mosquitoes! Come on now, take a look at those beady little eyes, those waggling antenna and that thorax, and tell me that’s not a bug!
Once you stomach this reality, it becomes a little easier to consider the fact that insects are an important source of nutrition for people in many parts of the world. The U.N. World Food Program considers insects a highly nutritious source of protein and estimates that nearly 90 countries in Asia, Africa, and some Latin American cultures eat certain species of beetles, larvae, ants, and even locusts as part of their daily meals. A world renowned entomology researcher, Prof. Arnold Van Huis from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, points out that shrimps are comparable to insects, and then he urges Western cultures to accept eating land insects as a source for sustainable protein. He claims it could help solve hunger and reduce greenhouse gases by cutting back on the need to raise livestock. http://bit.ly/nLnIPm
As my mind wanders I start to think about raising and herding livestock and its environmental impact (all that mooing and all that manure) as compared to harvesting sustainable insects from the land or the sea. And as I take my next bite of grilled lobster tail, my head comes back around to how delicious this bug tastes, and the shrimps I ate before it, and I realize that yes, in fact “I do eat a lot of bugs,” from the sea, “and I love them!”
As I imagine harvesting lobster bugs and shrimp insects from the sea as compared to herding cattle in Texas, I realize that WOW, Florida lobster season is upon us soon! People are really starting to get excited about it and are planning vacations around the Florida Keys Sportsman Lobster Weekend in July and Key West Lobsterfest inKey West. But instead of cowboys donning boots and chaps and riding horses to face the steers, it will be divers donning flippers and masks and driving a boat to face the insects … I mean the bugs.
I guess in a way, eating insects is already a part of Key West culture, at least bugs from the sea. It’s kind of interesting to at least consider the possibility of including other kinds of bugs as a source of protein. But until that point, isn’t it nice to know that our own local lobsters and shrimp can be so darn delicious? And good thing at $12 to $15 per pound! In my book – “Bugs are Better than Cake … or for that matter, Key Lime Pie too!”
