YOU’RE EATING WHAT?

Posted on July 28, 2026July 29, 2026 by vlaw759

If you are considering eating cockroaches, don’t microwave them! They are so fatty that they explode in the microwave. You just don’t want the mess.

Which is not to say you shouldn’t eat them. According to the EntoMove Project, the cockroach nutritional profile, per mg/100g, (3.53 oz) is 19 g protein, 10 g fat, calcium 38, iron14, zinc 32, potassium 224, niacin 44, magnesium 50, B12 237 mcg.

You might be surprised to learn that the U.S. is listed among countries where cockroaches are either a common or semi-common ingredient in the country’s cuisine or they are offered in at least some restaurants, possibly as a novelty. Other countries include China, Mexico, Japan, and Thailand. (For the Love of Chocolate in Carytown, VA offers scorpion lollipops and ant candy!)

Current research on this topic is non-comprehensive. It is likely that insects are a regular part of the diet in countries not listed above particularly in South America, Africa, and southern Asia. Many traditional cuisines are often more accepting of the idea of insects as a protein source.

And it isn’t just cockroaches. In many cultures around the world, insects are a traditional and nutritious part of the diet. This practice, called entomophagy, is common in regions where insects are abundant, sustainable, and rich in protein, healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals. Here are some cultures and regions where eating bugs is more common.

Latin America

chapulines insects — *Chapulines in Mexico*

Mexico: Insects like chapulines (grasshoppers), escamoles (ant larvae), and gusanos de maguey (maguey worm) are popular, especially in Oaxaca and central Mexico. Cooks often toast chapulines with chili and lime and serve them as snacks or added to tacos.

Colombia: Hormigas culonas (big-bottomed ants) are a delicacy, particularly in Santander. People often toast them to eat as a crunchy snack.

Brazil: In the Amazon, indigenous communities eat tucum (palm weevil larvae) and suri (palm beetle larvae).

Southeast Asia

Cambodian fried tarantula insects — *Cambodian fried tarantulas*

Thailand: In markets and street food stalls, you can find insects like crickets, silkworm pupae, water beetles, and bamboo worms. They are often fried or roasted and seasoned with spices.

Laos: Khao tom mat (ant egg soup) and deep-fried insects are common snacks.

Vietnam: Cricket and silkworm dishes are popular, often stir-fried or used in soups.

Cambodia: Fried tarantulas and water beetles often serve as snacks.

Myanmar: Many cooks include beetle larvae and ants in salads or soups.

Africa

South Africa: The mopane worm (a caterpillar) is dried or canned and eaten as a protein-rich food.

Zimbabwe and Zambia: Madora (larvae of the mopane moth) are a traditional food source.

Congo: Roasted or boiled palm weevil larvae and termites are a popular ingredient and snack.

*Palm weevil larva farmer, displaying their stock*

Nigeria: In some regions, rising livestock feed prices are leading people to raise palm weevil larvae and grasshopper as alternatives to chickens and cattle.

Australia and Oceania

Indigenous Australians: Traditionally ate honey ants, witchetty grubs (larvae of cossid moths), and bardi grubs (larvae of palm weevils). People most often eat these raw or only lightly cooked.

*Dora Napaljarri Kitson, hunting for Witchetty grubs (Ed Gold)*

Papua New Guinea: Sago grubs (larvae of the sago palm weevil) are a delicacy, often eaten raw or roasted.

East Asia

China: In many provinces, including Yunnan and Guangxi, people eat insects like silkworm pupae, cricket, bee larvae, and water beetles. Cooks often stir-fry them or use them in soups.

Japan: Inago (grasshoppers) and hachinoko (bee larvae) are traditional foods, often boiled in soy sauce.

South Korea: Beondegi (silkworm pupae) is a popular street food, steamed or boiled and seasoned with spices.

Middle East

Oman and Yemen: During swarms, locusts and desert locusts make a very handy addition to many dishes, often roasted or fried.

Why Do These Cultures Eat Bugs?

Nutritional Benefits: Insects are high in protein, healthy fats, fiber, vitamins (like B12), and minerals (like iron and zinc).

Sustainability: Insects require far less land, water, and feed compared to traditional livestock, making them an eco-friendly protein source.

Cultural Tradition: In many regions, eating insects is a long-standing practice tied to local ecosystems and food security.

Availability: Insects are often abundant in tropical and subtropical regions, making them a reliable food source.

In many cultures, insects are recognized/consumed for their medicinal as well as nutritional properties.

Bottom Line: Are you open to exotic and beneficial foods?

EATING LIKE YOUR GREAT GRANDPARENTS

Posted on April 15, 2025April 15, 2025 by vlaw759

I’m not talking about old family recipes here. I’m talking about “bought foods” some from hundreds of years ago, still consumed today. These brands are still popular in the United States; people in other countries are no doubt eating and drinking like their own great grandparents, but I am focusing on the brands I know.

Breakfast

You may be starting your day off by eating (and caffeinating) just like your ancestors!

In 1850, William H. Bovee, the owner of the Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills in San Francisco, built a mill that allowed him to sell pre-roasted, ground coffee. In 1865, A. Folger became a full partner, going on to buy out the other partners and rename the company J.A. Folger & Co. in 1872. Folger’s Coffee was born.

Farther east, in 1873, Joel Cheek left Kentucky to seek a new life in Nashville, Tennessee. Eventually he launched the Nashville Coffee and Manufacturing Company. In 1892, Cheek created a special blend of coffee that he named after the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, which was one of his biggest customers. Legend has it that in 1907 President Teddy Roosevelt visited Maxwell House, the prestigious Nashville hotel and after finishing a cup of their namesake coffee, he declared it was, “good to the last drop.”

Ferdinand Schumacher founded the German Mills American Oatmeal Company in the 1850s in Akron, Ohio. With Robert Stuart of Ontario, he opened the Quaker Mill Company in 1877 in Ravenna, Ohio. In 1881, Henry Crowell bought the company and launched a national advertising campaign for Quaker Oats.

John Harvey Kellogg/W.K. Kellogg created Kellogg’s Corn Flakes at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan in 1894. Kellogg was supporting good health through a vegetarian diet. Accidentally invented as a breakfast food to counter indigestion, Corn Flakes, the first dry, flaked breakfast cereal, became the most popular dry breakfast cereal in the world.

Lunch

You can take a break at lunchtime by eating the same lunch your great grandparents enjoyed!

Wonder Bread is an American brand of sliced bread. Established in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1921, it was one of the first companies to sell sliced bread nationwide by 1930. Elmer Cline named the company after the wonder he felt witnessing the launch of hundreds of hot air balloons at the International Balloon Race in Indianapolis.

After working for many years in a Chicago sausage factory, Oscar Mayer opened his first hot dog shop in 1883. Events like the Chicago World Fair in 1893, World War I, the release of the Wienermobiles, and the Oscar Mayer Wiener song made these hot dogs a cultural phenomenon.

In 1898, a LeRoy, New York-based carpenter and cough syrup manufacturer named Pearle Bixby Wait trademarked a combination of granulated gelatin, sugar, and flavoring called Jell-O. The first flavors were strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lemon.

Baking

Many of the brands modern bakers use have not changed substantially in generations. Even when baking at home, you may be eating the same cake as your great-grandparents!

In 1790, Henry Wood launched a company specializing in importing and distributing English-milled flour in Boston. Henry Wood & Co started milling and selling American-grown flour in 1825, when the Erie Canal made distribution faster and more reliable. They launched a new product in 1895 called King Arthur Flour (the name inspired by the hit musical of the day, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table).

In 1764, John Hannon and Dr. James Baker started importing cacao beans and producing chocolate in Dorcester, Massachusetts. For 15 years, the duo produced chocolate under the company name Hannon’s Best Chocolate. Hannon went on a cacao-gathering trip to the West Indies in 1779, and never returned. Baker changed the company name to Baker Chocolate Company.

Charles Alfred Pillsbury founded C.A. Pillsbury and Company along with his uncle, John Pillsbury, in Minneapolis in 1872. Pillsbury was the second company in the United States to use steel rollers for grain processing. The Doughboy didn’t come around until 1965.

Carnation is now a brand of food products, but Elbridge Amos Stuart began as a dairy farmer in 1908. In addition to selective breeding, Carnation Farms aimed to increase milk production through keeping their cows happy and stress-free. The brand was especially known for its evaporated milk product created in 1899, first called Carnation Sterilized Cream and later called Carnation Evaporated Milk.

In 1912, a group of California raisin growers created the California Associated Raisin Company, which became Sun-Maid Growers of California. So, while not as old as some, Sun-Maid Raisins have still been around longer than today’s consumers.

Sauces

Even if the other ingredients change, the flavors of what you’re eating may not be very different from what your great-grandparents ate.

When Edmund McIlhenny and his wife Mary Eliza first settled Avery Island, Louisiana, in 1859, they made a mint harvesting salt and selling it to the Confederates. The Union Army ransacked his entire operation. When McIlhenny inspected his land after the war was over, he noticed something growing: a spicy pepper native to the Mexican state of Tabasco. McIlhenny planted tabasco peppers all over the island, and started selling his Tabasco Hot Sauce, made with those peppers and Avery Island salt, in 1868.

The story of Heinz Ketchup began in 1876 when it was first marketed as “catsup” by Henry J. Heinz. In the Unites States, many assume ketchup is always tomato-based, but that is an American invention. Around the world, people have made ketchups with all sorts of main ingredients, for example, mushrooms or bananas.

Drinks

In addition to eating like your ancestors, there is a very good chance you’re drinking like them!

Johannes “Reginald” Beam, a Kentucky farmer, began producing whiskey in the style that would eventually become known as bourbon, and sold his first barrel of corn whiskey, which he called Old Jake Beam Sour Mash, in 1795. Today this is Jim Beam Bourbon, of course.

On May 8, 1886, Dr. John Pemberton poured the world’s first glass of Coca-Cola at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta, Ga. He served about nine drinks. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it didn’t catch on immediately. The first recipe for Coke contained both wine and cocaine, and was marketed toward upper class intellectuals.

Caleb Bradham, a pharmacist in New Bern, North Carolina, invented a concoction that he originally called Brad’s Drink in 1893. He changed the name in 1898 to Pepsi-Cola, to advertise that his drink got its flavoring from kola nuts and could treat dyspepsia. Though the original recipe did not have any pepsin, it did contain vanilla and sugar, which Bradham claimed would aid in digestion and boost energy.

Yuengling Beer is a product of D. G. Yuengling & Son, established in 1829, is the oldest operating brewing company in the United States. In 2018, by volume of sales, it was the largest craft brewery, sixth largest overall brewery, and largest wholly American-owned brewery in the United States. Its headquarters are in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

Thomas Lipton opened a small grocery shop in 1871 in Glasgow, Scotland. While traveling to source new stock for his store, he purchased tea gardens in modern-day Sri Lanka in 1890. He was able to control the entire supply chain, selling Lipton Tea in packets with the slogan “Direct from the tea gardens to the teapot.”

Snacks

Between meals, there’s a good chance you’re eating the same snacks as your great-grandparents. Though the recipes have no doubt changed, you may be reaching for the same brands and labels.

“The invention of the potato chip is attributed to George Crum, who was born George Speck in 1824, the son of an African American father and a Native American mother who was a member of the Huron people. In 1853 he was a cook at Moon’s Lake House restaurant in Saratoga Springs, New York. A customer sent back his order of fried potatoes, stating that the slices were too thick. Supposedly, Crum cut thinner slices of potato, but the customer was still dissatisfied. An annoyed Crum then decided to cut thin sections of potato and fry them in oil until they resembled crispy disks that could not be eaten with a fork. The customer, instead of being irritated, was delighted by the crunchy potatoes. Other restaurant patrons then requested the dish, leading the establishment to offer its special Saratoga chips.”
Encyclopedia Britannica

According to a taste test by Bon Appetit, the best potato chips today are Lay’s Classic.

The Rueckheim Brothers of Chicago, Il. trademarked the Cracker Jack label in 1896. However, coated popcorn and peanut mixtures had been around since at least the late 1850s and people were described eating them in articles dating from about 1857 to the 1880s. The contribution of the Rueckheim Brothers was largely to make the product less messy to eat by means of a carefully guarded process of processing. Circa 1899, Henry Eckstein joined Frederick Rueckheim & Bro, adding the packaging that would be familiar to anyone who bought Cracker Jacks well into the 1960s and beyond.

Not so old, but the Hershey Company is one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. The name of the company has changed over time: Hershey Chocolate Co. (1894–1927), Hershey Chocolate Corporation (1927–68), Hershey Foods Corporation (1968–2005). Whatever the name, Hershey chocolates are classic.

Tootsie Rolls are a chocolate caramel candy that has been manufactured in the United States since 1907. It was the first penny candy to be individually wrapped in America. According to the company, they make over 65 million Tootsie Rolls daily.

Bottom Line: If the original product is good, subsequent iterations can go on indefinitely.

SNACKS AND SNACKING IN AMERICA

Posted on February 1, 2022February 1, 2022 by vlaw759

While filming **The Avengers** (2012), Robert Downey Jr routinely hid food around the set so he could snack between takes. When he offered to share with his co-stars, the director let the camera keep filming. And so we end up with Iron Man offering Captain America and Hulk some of his blueberries.

*Some people (particularly those who keep outgrowing their sneakers) snack on anything that stays still long enough.*

February is National Snack Food Month. It was started in 1989 to “to increase consumption and build awareness of snacks during a month when snack food consumption was traditionally low” according to the Fooducate wellness community. February 15th is a particularly good day to stock up on chocolate!

According to Oxford Languages, a snack is a small amount of food eaten between meals. Snacks often differ from main meals in what they contain, portion size, consumption time, and place as well as why they`re eaten
So, theoretically, it can be anything. But certain foods are more likely to be chosen than others. My personal observations—totally not scientific—is that people tend to be primarily salty snackers OR sweet snackers.

Salty or Sweet?

You can find favorite junk food by state, but these are the nation’s most popular snacks, as measured by consumer opinion.

Jif. (peanut butter)
Oreos.
Lay’s.
Pringles.
Fritos.
Snickers.
Tostitos.
Cheetos.

And sometimes, one is not enough: according to a OnePoll survey of 2000 snackers, 60% said snacks taste better when they’re paired together.

Cookies and cream 39 percent
Chocolate and nuts 37 percent
Popcorn and chocolate 35 percent
Chocolate and marshmallow 34 percent
Chocolate and fruit 33 percent
Peanut butter and jelly 32 percent
Peanut butter and apples 30 percent
Cheese and crackers 27 percent
Chips and salsa 26 percent
Chocolate and peanut butter 26 percent

Modern Snack Trends

According to an article by Bridget Goldschmidt (progressivegrocer.com), Americans are snacking between meals more than ever, and eating snack foods with meals grew by 5% over the ten-year period from 2010 to 2020. She cited several conclusions.

*Some people bake the cookies before eating them.*

NPD (a national research group) also found that snacking follows a daily pattern in most U.S. households: better-for-you snacks such as fruit or yogurt are eaten in the morning; snacks like potato chips or tortilla chips are likely eaten at lunch; and sweeter snacks like chocolate candy and cookies in the evening.

What drives snacking?
- Taste
- Satiety (how full the eater is)
- Preferences
- How easy a food is to eat
- Time of day (health-driven motivation gives way to satiety as the day goes on)

The COVID-19 pandemic ramped up snacking. (How surprising is that? Not.) The NPD study cited in the article found that having enough snack foods available during the pandemic is important to 37% of consumers. These consumers’ homes are well stocked with salty snacks and frozen sweets more than other items.

In many cases, the more snack food packages in the home, the more often the item is eaten, which tends to be particularly true of certain kinds of snack foods, such as salty snacks.

*Wonder Woman takes her snacking seriously.*

According to the survey of 2,000 American snackers mentioned above:

71 percent of all those surveyed consider themselves “snackers”
66 percent said snacking brings them great joy
67 percent said snacking is one of their favorite forms of stress relief
- (No wonder snacking is up during the pandemic!)

Snacks? What Snacks?

**Conan the Barbarian** always steals Princess Yasimina’s snacks, but at least he shares.

48 percent of surveyed Americans have stashed their favorite treats in hidden spots around the house (often with no plans to share!).

*Doctor McCoy tries to hide his snacks, but Vulcans are notorious snack sleuths.*

46 percent of those who had hidden snacks said they simply “don’t want to share”
53 percent said the people they live with would “eat them all” if they knew where to look

Of respondents who have ever hidden snacks, 69 percent said they’re currently doing so!

72 percent said their snack stash has been discovered by someone else
The average person has moved a snack stash four times to try to keep it a secret.
71 percent of the time partners and kids were the finders of respondents’ “snackpiles”
Only 6 percent of respondents have never been caught

*Does time travel for fries count as a hiding place?*

A few creative snack hiding places:

Behind the washing machine
Inside oatmeal containers
Behind books on a bookshelf
In the freezer, behind the broccoli
Under yarn piles in a knitting basket
On a top shelf, out of sight
Among cleaning supplies
At the bottom of the diaper bag
Taped to the underside of the fish tank lid
Behind the butter churn
Suspended from the ceiling, above the ceiling fan
In the wall, behind the vents or outlet covers

And the average respondent believes they could survive almost FIVE full months on their stockpile of snacks alone.

Really? I’d be pressed to live 5 months on my pantry, 2 refrigerators, and a freezer! Surely that was 5 full months of snacks.

BOTTOM LINE: In the U.S., you now know the what of snacking, and a bit of the when.

STAY TUNED: Next week I’ll delve into where and why!

Food and Drink Can Poison Your Prose!

Posted on September 23, 2016September 23, 2016 by vlaw759

I love food. For me, eating and drinking across cultures is one of the main reasons to go somewhere new! The last time I was in Italy, I bought this book. Indeed, wherever I go, I try to buy a cookbook (written in English!).

For me, the danger of writing about food and drink is going overboard. Describing every dish at Thanksgiving dinner, listing all the ingredients in Bacardi Minced Fruit Pie…

Unless you are Waverley Root, or your book is actually about food, remember that a little goes a long way. It’s like transportation in that way.

So, when people come together over food, keep the focus on advancing the plot: Who says what while passing the goulash? What is the significance of Mama making veal paprikas? What are people thinking and feeling as they dig into the smashed potatoes?

Meals can be extremely important to your plot. They can be a platform for bringing people together to show alliances, competitions, insecurities, grudges, etc. But while the dinner table is the platform, keep the focus on the action.

Another function food and drink can serve is to illustrate ethnic roots—either for the first time, or as a reinforcement. Sangria is clearly associated with Spain and Portugal in ways that beer just isn’t.

aztec way healthy living peruvian kitchen

Additionally, food and drink preferences can define your character. Does s/he drink beer or martinis? Craft beer? Single-malt scotch? Drink (and food) choices can say much about your character’s roots, socio-economic status, and self-concept.

So, one way food and drink can poison your prose is by focusing on the food and drink to the detriment of the plot, action, and character. But cliché food and drink is just as hazardous.

You need to bring two people together to talk. You have them sit down with cups of coffee and cookies/pie/cake/donuts. Ho-hum. First of all, try to bring in food only when it’s relevant. So your first defense against this poison it to get them together over something less stereotyped. Oiling the teak on a boat, Setting up a museum exhibit… even gardening together!

Your second line of defense is to add a few vivid sensory images. Consider the coffee and cookie option. Even if eating and drinking is background to the conversation, make your reader smell the coffee, feel the chew of the oatmeal, savor the sweetness, etc.

Bottom line: Food and drink can be great or deadly—your choice!

Vivian Lawry

Writer

writing about food