I Try It So You Don’t Have To: Salt and Vinegar Crick-ettes

A friend stumbled upon these in a convenience store, and of course they had to wind up in my hands. My reputation as the guy who eats gross things is starting to spread. A double edged sword if there ever was one.

For $1.99 you are clearly paying for shock value not portion size. I’m pretty sure a palmful of crickets isn’t going to deliver much in the way of calories or nutrition.  Oh look, they don’t.

They do have a handy diagram of all of the crickety bits you might be eating. Cricket rump sounds delightful doesn’t it? OK lets see what these little buggers are about shall we?

I shook them out of the bag and that is it, that is the whole package, not to scale with the Eiffel Tower of course. Basically a bunch of whole or partial crickets that are completely desiccated. They smelled pretty much like salt and vinegar chips. They don’t have any real noticeable weight or mass to them, feels like holding a piece of popcorn in your hand.

They really taste like nothing, well nothing but salt and vinegar. Very dry, crunchy and occasionally spikey. I got something, I’m assuming a leg, caught between my teeth which was not fun. So salt and vinegar chips that are uncomfortable to eat is a good summary. I scooped up a handful and popped them in my mouth to see if I could discern any flavor other than the seasonings and it made no difference. I have never understood the phrase “drier than a popcorn fart” but somehow it seems to fit in this case.

I was amused by the remaining legs, wings and other bits that were left on the plate. All in all the cricket anatomy lesson was the only rewarding part of this tasting.

I have to wonder about the reason these things might exist. Outside of shock value I can’t see any reason to have these out for public consumption. Taste wise they have nothing to offer so unless you have some squeamish friends you would like to gross out I would put these firmly into the “Don’t have to” category.