Diners Across the Globe Munch on Bugs for Charity
What’s the Latest?
About $6,000 was raised yesterday at a charity pop-up in Washington DC called the Pestaurant, an event that featured diners munching on insects for charity. The event, amusingly sponsored by a pest control company, was set up as a pop-up in an actual restaurant’s Pennsylvania Avenue NW patio. The food — which included grasshopper burgers and roasted locusts — was free to diners and passersby. Ehrlich, a subsidiary of international exterminators Rentokil, agreed to donate $5 to the DC Central Kitchen for every person who agreed to try an insect. Competitors in the cricket-eating contest earned the DC Central Kitchen an additional $25 each.The D.C. Pestaurant was just one of 16 that popped up across the globe yesterday in an international day of charitable insect eating.
What’s the Big Idea?
While some may shudder at the thought of cricket crème brûlée, many cultures around the world feature insects prominently in their local cuisine. Rodney Suggs, a chef at the Occidental Restaurant (which hosted the DC Pestaurant), likened the taste of grasshopper meat to mushrooms and suggested that insects could be but a hot trend away from hopping onto mainstream American menus.
The story linked below in The Washington Post offers an amusing account of the DC event (though if you’re squeamish I’d suggest reading it on an empty stomach). Other Pestaurants popped up in cities ranging from Cape Town to Belfast to Madrid. You can access a map of all the global pop-ups as well as learn more about the event at Pestaurant.com.
Read more at The Washington Post
Photo credit: Paul Reeves Photography/Shutterstock
