Crickets are more versatile than you might think, and in Japan they are used as both a snack and a culinary staple. You can bake them into bread, dip them into ramen noodles, and now you can eat ground crickets in udon noodles. Our Japanese-language reporter K. Masami decided to try ready-to-eat cricket udon noodles from Japanese insect company Bugoom, which is made from about 100 crickets.
â–¼ This is also not a marketing ploy, since “crickets” is the second ingredient listed on the label.
Luckily, when you open the package, you won’t find 100 whole crickets. It has noodles, soy sauce soup, and dried green onions. And the crickets? They’re ground into powder in the noodle package.
To make udon, Masami pours a little boiling water into a bowl with udon noodles, soy sauce broth and dried green onions.
So, is there anything special about the taste? Masami had to admit that she couldn’t tell the difference between regular udon and cricket udon.
Luckily, she had backup. The set meal she bought from Bugoom actually included a bag of dried whole crickets to enjoy with her noodles. The set meal cost her 1,750 yen ($15.41), but hey, where else can you get cricket soup delivered to your door?
Masami opened the cricket bag and poured out its contents, surprised to find so many crickets in the 15 gram (0.53 ounce) bag. There are at least 100 crickets!
It didn’t look very pretty, but Masami thought it smelled very much like shrimp. Not appetizing at all!
â–¼ Masami loves insects and thinks crickets are cute, so her heart breaks a little when she pours them into her udon bowl.
It looks like regular udon noodles, but it looks weird because there are so many crickets. However, it tastes like shrimp, so Masami can’t help but eat it.
It tasted better than she imagined, and soon she was stuffing them in. As she struggled to finish the bowl, she realized that perhaps the entire bag of crickets was too big (no pun intended).
Masami recommends trying it at least once in your life, especially since it goes great with udon noodles. Soon, the entire country might be eating and even drinking these niche snacks!
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Post time: Nov-21-2024