Subject: Re: Why not eat insects? & Native Amer. cookbook

From: [email-masked] (SDunavan)
Date: 11 Oct 1994 17:49:03 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>,
[email-masked] (Mindy Wallis) writes:

<When did Europeans become so finicky?  Do Native Americans eat insects?>

I suspect people will say the reason Europeans don't eat insects is
because it isn't part of their culture (just like the reasons for
eating/not eating pork).  You may be able to find some anthropological
references to entomaphobia in Europe & the U.S.; i.e. insects are "dirty"
and just not in the category of possible foods.  I'm sure someone who
tries can discover some good cultural justifications or a functional
background for this system of classification.

But, as to Native American insect use: yes.  At least, they were used as
food in the past and still are in a few places in the western U.S. and
Mexico.  An archaeologist named Mark Sutton has pulled together many of
the anthropological  and archaeological references (again, mostly from
western U.S.) in a book titled "Insects as Food: Aboriginal Entomophagy in
the Great Basin".  This is Ballena Press, Anthropological Paper 33.

In the eastern U.S., there are a few scattered references to the Cherokee
use of yellowjacket/bee larvae for an occasional snack, and some notes on
the use of honey ants, but not much else.  

Also, for the reader who was interested in more Native American cookbooks,
here's another:
   Ulmer, Mary and Samuel E. Beck (editors)  1951.  Cherokee Cooklore:
      Preparing Cherokee Foods.  Cherokee, NC:  Mary and Goingback
      Chiltokey, in cooperation with the Stephens Press, Inc.

Ciao, SDunavan