LOCUSTS AS FOOD FOR MAN. 533 



jority of our people, unaccustomed to anything of the sort, and asso- 

 ciating with the word ' insect ' or ' bug,' everything horrid and repul- 

 sive. Yet I was governed by weightier reasons than mere curiosity ; 

 for many a family in Kansas and Nebraska was, in 1874, brought to 

 the brink of the grave by sheer lack of food, while the St. Louis 

 papers reported cases of actual death from starvation in some sec- 

 tions of Missouri, where the insects abounded and ate up every green 

 thing, in the spring of 1875. 



" Whenever the occasion presented, I partook of locusts prepared 

 in different ways, and one day I ate of no other kind of food, and must 

 have consumed, in one way or another, the substance of several thou- 

 sand half-grown locusts. Commencing the experiments with some 

 misgivings, and fully expecting to have to overcome disagreeable fla- 

 voi', I was soon agreeably surprised to find that the insects were quite 

 palatable in whatever way prepared. The flavor of the raw locust is 

 most strong and disagreeable, but that of the cooked insect is agree- 

 able and sufficiently mild to be easily neutralized by anything with 

 which they may be mixed, and to admit of easy disguise, according to 

 taste or fancy. But the great point I would make in their favor is 

 that they need no elaborate preparation or seasoning, and that they 

 really require no disguise ; and herein lies their value in exceptional 

 emergencies, for, when people are driven to the point of starvation by 

 these ravenous pests, it follows that all other food is scarce or unat- 

 tainable. A broth, made by boiling the unfledged calopteni for two 

 hours in the proper quantity of water, and seasoned with nothing but 

 pepper and salt, is quite palatable and scarcely to be distinguished 

 from beef-broth, though it has a slight flavor peculiar to it and not 

 easy to be described. The addition of a little butter improves it, and 

 the flavor can, of course, be modified with mint, sage, and other spices 

 ad libitum. Fried or roasted in nothing but their own oil, with the ad- 

 dition of a little salt, they are by no means unpleasant eating, and have 

 quite a nutty flavor. In fact, it is a flavor, like most peculiar and not 

 unpleasant flavors, that one can soon learn to get fond of. Prepared 

 in this manner, ground and compressed, they would doubtless keep for 

 a long time. Yet their consumption in large quantities in this form 

 would not, I think, prove as wholesome as when made into soup or 

 broth, for I found the chitinous covering and corneous parts, especially 

 the spines on the tibise, dry and chippy, and somewhat irritating to the 

 throat. This objection would not apply with the same force to the 

 mature individuals, especially of the larger species, where the heads, 

 legs, and wings are carefully separated before cooking ; and, in fact, 

 some of the mature insects prepared in this way, then boilerl, and 

 afterward stewed with a few vegetables, and a little butter, pepper, 

 salt, and vinegar, made an excellent fricassee. . . . 



" I sent a bushel of scalded insects to Mr. John Bonnet, one of the 

 oldest and best-known caterers of St. Louis. Master of the mys- 



