An NOLA eatery's menu included crickets and wax worms on toothpick skewers for dipping in a fountain of melted chocolate, along with "tarsal toffee" made with bug legs and mealworms and fudge infused with crickets and marshmallows. What actually looked like a Halloween trick was actually an array of treats being served up Saturday at the Audobon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium in New Orleans. The 23,000-square-foot facility is the largest free-standing museum in the U.S. and is dedicated to insects. It houses thousands of live bugs including beetles, cockroaches, wasps, bees and termites. It also has a butterfly exhibit created to resemble a Japanese garden. This is one place that my fiancee will NEVER step into. I have my phobia of little people and she has hers with bugs.
The insect-infused cuisine is also a huge draw at the Insectarium. Thousands visit the museum's Bug Appetit kitchen annually, where six-legged critters and worms are cooked and served. There's also a Tiny Termite Cafe for the less adventurous who prefer bug-free food. The FDA allows 60 or more micropscopic insect fragments for each 100 grams of chocolate, so it's not a huge leap to just go ahead and have the whole bug.
The chocolate infused bug fare was being offered as a special "treat" alongside the museum's year-round offerings of chocolate "chirp" cookies, made with you guessed it....crickets! There are also sugar wax worms and spicy Cajun crickets. Um, yeah. I think that I will be avoiding this place. To each his own, right? One day when the world is ending and bugs are the only things left that we can eat, we will wish that we would have tried it now....Until that day comes? Keep it at the Insectarium in New Orleans!
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