Containers full of flavored cricket snacks are stacked at Entosense in Lewiston. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
LEWISTON — In Maine, the celebrated lobster was once known as the “poor man’s protein,” fed occasionally to prisoners here and in other parts of New England. Sushi, so ubiquitous now you can find it in supermarkets virtually everywhere, was once snubbed in this country and started out as street food in Japan. Who wants to eat raw fish?
Clearly, times and palates change. Will the same happen with bugs?
There’s a growing foodie trend in Europe and Canada right now involving another “poor man’s protein” — edible insects. In Lewiston, a company called Entosense is carefully watching this unfold as the owners tout the many benefits of edible insects and why you should make edible insects a part of your daily diet.
Humans have eaten insects for thousands of years, and indigenous people of North America were avid bug eaters, according to the Science Museum of Virginia blog Experimental Musings.
Insects are mostly eaten in Asia, Africa and parts of Latin America. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says insects are regularly consumed by an estimated 2 billion people worldwide — a figure challenged by many as exaggerated.
In the Mexican states of Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Puebla and others, people consume insects much like they did before European settlers came. The markets in Thailand are a good spot to find street vendors frying bugs in soy sauce, dusting them with seasoning and serving them alongside a cold beer. There’s even “A Chef’s Tour” guide to eating insects in Thailand, complete with descriptions, flavor profiles and a roadmap to specific areas in Bangkok where you can find vendors.
Some advocates are touting crickets as the next superfood because they contain a variety of essential nutrients and are a great source of antioxidants, high quality protein, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids. There are about 2,000 species of insects that have been identified as edible, each having unique flavors and textures that can be baked, fried, pureed, ground into flour, or turned into salts.
So why are so many people in this country — especially adults — so squeamish when it comes to even talking about eating bugs, which goes by the term entomophagy?
Ask Bill or Susan Broadbent, the owners of Lewiston-based Entosense, because they’ve probably heard it all. When they give presentations to groups about edible insects, they are lucky to get half the adults to try a sample. “But when we do it with kids, we joke that like half will do it right away and by the end of the session almost every other kid will try it,” Bill Broadbent explained.
They call the aversion an unwarranted cultural fear. Even some of their employees who package the product won’t try them, although one young man said he’s partial to the sea salt and pepper mealworms.
The Broadbents started their company in a barn in 2015 and quickly outgrew that space, making the move to mill space on Chestnut Street just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The company was, of course, just starting to take off, so it’s been a steady rebuild since then.
The appeal of edible insects was primarily a novelty in the beginning — scorpion lollipops and crickets flavored to taste like cotton candy, mango habanero, Italian lasagna and lemon meringue. But novelty sales now represent only half of their business.
Entosense products are on display inside Iowa 80, which bills itself as the world’s largest truck stop, boasting a 300-seat restaurant, 34 fuel pumps, a super truck showroom, barber, dentist, chiropractor, movie theater, large convenience store, a gift store and a food court featuring eight restaurants and parking for 900 trucks.
“You know whenever a dad comes in and sees your display,” a truck stop representative told Broadbent, “if he’s got a son he’s got to bring stuff home, they can’t walk by.”
Iowa 80 is one of Entosense’s big accounts. Its products are also sold in World Market, which has 240 stores in 38 states. “We started in their novelty section, now we’re in their snack section because we just keep selling,” Broadbent explained. The stores have always had an eclectic stock of products from around the world, especially in the food section.
A metamorphic mealworm taco prepared by Shawn Duffy, co-founder of Invertebration, sits on a plate in the Matthew Highlands Food Pilot Plant at the University of Maine. University of Maine photo
Entosense also offers products to two growing segments of the market — athletes and chefs. Bug Strong is a prebiotic protein powder made from cricket powder, with no additives. It is paleo- and keto-friendly and gluten-free, and has already found a following among bodybuilders.
In 2017 the Seattle Mariners baseball team started serving chapulines, or grasshoppers, a Mexican delicacy, roasted with a chili oil and lime salt mixture as a snack at the ballpark. Six years later the protein-packed snack is one of the most popular dishes and is no longer considered a novelty.
What do insects taste like? Many have little to no flavor by themselves but take on the flavor of whatever you cook them with. This primer is on WebMD (www.webmd.com/food-recipes/ss/slideshow-bugs-you-can-eat):
Grasshoppers: usually fried or roasted whole with a crunchy texture. In Uganda they sell for more than beef per pound because they are so popular.
Ants: come in many varieties and sizes and are described as having a lemony-citrus flavor. Frequently used by chefs in fine dining restaurants.
Bees: usually eaten in larvae form and are high in amino acids. They are described as having a buttery, kind of fatty texture with stingless varieties used by Australian aboriginals as a sugar source.
Beetles: rich in protein, certain vitamins and minerals, can be dry roasted or combined with other ingredients.
Termites: rich in protein, fatty acids, iron, and calcium. Served fried, smoked and sun dried, or boiled and sauteed with a pinch of salt, they are described by the BBC as tasting like “tiny pieces of crispy bacon.”
Mealworms: omega-3 fatty acids, protein with lots of minerals. Served raw, dry-roasted or ground up and added to flour to make tortillas in Mexico.
Entosense relies heavily on the internet, but Bill Broadbent says they went to a lot of trade shows before the pandemic and hopes to get back to the circuit. They are working on getting their products into regional and national grocery stores, health food stores and nutrition centers. But knowing that many buyers for these companies have the same reluctance as anyone else, it takes persuasion. Still, Entosense products can be found in about 1,000 retail locations.
Broadbent feels sustainability and nutrition will be among the paths of least resistance moving forward. “You know, there’s a lot of people talking about nutrition and so nutrition is going to be the big way forward.”
Entosense is also coordinating with the University of Maine’s food science innovation program and the Maine Tasting Center to help change the public’s perception of edible bugs and expand consumption throughout the food industry.
For instance, in August representatives of the three groups along with Invertebration, an Athens, Maine-based insect-rearing startup, met in Orono to sample corn salad cups with chicatana ant mayonnaise, metamorphic mealworm tacos and baked cornmeal muffins topped with black ant “poppy seeds,” which Susan Broadbent baked.
The group will showcase their dishes to the public — offering a unique opportunity for anyone to sample a gourmet, sustainable, insect-added meal — on Oct. 28 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Maine Tasting Center in Wiscasset. The evening will begin with a cocktail hour featuring edible insect cocktails and mocktails and light snacks. Dinner will be a four-course cooking demonstration and meal featuring edible insects. Guests will leave with a party favor of edible insect sweets courtesy of Entosense. For more information, go to mainetastingcenter.com/classes.
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