Fiction to reality: Will the US ever embrace insect cuisine?
“After the ninth epidemic of mad cow disease, everyone was already eating insects. So we weren’t the first restaurant in PuertoChina to do it,” said Nai Nai.
Nai Nai often told these stories while she and Grace squatted in a corner of the kitchen, soaking the cocoons in steaming hot water. Grace always liked to stir the paddle, loosening any stray dirt or leaf debris off the floating swaddled worms. It was Nai Nai’s role to take the washed cocoons, and with a deft hand and a sharp knife, pluck out the plump meat inside. Clean and quick.
“But no one,” said Nai Nai, finally getting to the part Grace liked best, “no one was serving silkworm on Canal Street. Not until I opened up the first restaurant! And they couldn’t get enough of it. I got the idea when I was walking past Mulberry. The city was planting more trees, and I thought, ‘You know, there used to be mulberry trees on Mulberry Street. Why don’t we bring them back?’”
Lobster was not always the luxury seafood that it is today. Before the late-1800s, the creepy-looking, bottom-feeding shellfish were super abundant on the northeast coast of the newly formed United States — they were cheap and generally viewed as a food for the poor, frequently fed to indentured servants and incarcerated people. But with the spread of railroads across the country, chefs began offering them to wealthy train passengers who weren’t aware of this reputation. They also discovered the still-used technique of boiling the creatures alive, which made the resulting dish more appetizing and aesthetically pleasing (if less humane). As more people discovered their deliciousness, lobsters became chic.
