Termite recipes You can cook them or eat them raw. Snake is good once people get by eating them. The same applies to mountain oysters.
We live in a forest, so specialty is found in down timber.. She classifies it as a few steps below fast food which we don't eat. We have a lot of cedar so termites wouldn't appreciate our house. As the house is older, they used creosote to protect the SYP (Southern Yellow Pine) sill plate and where the joists etc. contact it.
The neighbors ... Last resort though.... Pretty sure would need a lot of sauce/tabasco to hide the taste.
I don't like covering up the real taste of the food It's like putting sauce on a steak . if you don't like steak have a hamburger . As for snakes some taste good and some do not , it largely depends on what the animal has been eating and this is true for all animals. Deer that feed on corn taste best because it most resemble beef that eat corn. rattlesnakes that feed on insects more than mice taste better . Bear that feed on nuts and berries and roots, taste better than bear that feed primarily on fish or flesh . I had a ground squirrel the other day that had the best flavor , kind of nutty actually . If you were to domesticate any wild animal and maintain a vegetarian diet with it , it's flavor would be much more appealing. I like to encourage those the visit the woods often to bring seeds and plants to both provide for the animals that live there and ones self . Call it an investment in the future. I don't have much in eatable insects here, the birds I feed seem to gobble them right up . I like a large bird population ,in spite of the dangers they might bring. I often see the crows and ravens and hawks eyeing my chickens. I haven't yet , but I'm willing to try grub worms and termites . Learning new things is fun and interesting.
Termites will happily munch through most untreated softwoods....they'll have a go at hardwood timber if they are desperate and there's no better source of timber ready to hand. Some timber is naturally resistant to termites, and in pioneering days of old, those building materials were preferred. even if presented with timber that termites won't eat, they will create tunnels to the bits that they will eat, termites / white ants will construct conduits to get to the bits that are edible and which usually are not treated with termicide, like architraves, window frames, wainscoting, etc etc. In some of the more primitive places, folks would allow their chickens the run of under house areas....chickens love a little extra protein supplementation too. (Not recommended for houses where the soil has been treated with inorganic persistent chemicals. Good housekeeping is also important....as is keeping sub-floor areas dry. Sub-floor soil must be well drained.
@chelloveck Termites can eat cedar however, the resin and oil in cedar are toxic to termites who do eat it. Some termiticide companies are trying to develop treatments to emulate cedar. I don't believe they've had much success so far. Most use borate to protect against wood eating insects. Another means of keeping the away is using cedar mulch. Although, I believe the above, as I have about 3 full cords of wood about ~60' away. I have termite bait also. I was a automotive design engineer so I take matters too seriously and a level of detail most find boring. To make matters worse, she was one also.. True, they do have a go at hardwood. I burn wood for heat, white and red oak mostly and some softer woods to build a bed of coals. I've seen termites under the bark on the oak. However, what I cut is downed timber. The house is ground level at the front and the basement floor is ground level at the rear. There are crushed stone and PVC pipe drains along the foundation. When we moved in we had Vaejovis carolinianus or the southern unstriped scorpions. After 3 years of professional spraying; they have moved to safer pastures. One of the cats, Idget, was stung and one of the Pitts was going after one; so chemical warfare was initiated.
I generally prefer not to eat insects raw, honey ants being an exception. Some, such as grasshoppers and crickets can carry hairworms and/or tapeworms. I wouldn't eat armadillo at all because it can carry leprosy. From what I've read about 30% of 'dillos in the US have it. It's not super-contageous, so a person usually has to eat 'dillo fairly regularly for several years to wind up with it, and it can be treated by modern antibiotics. However, I've seen (and smelled) a case of wet leprosy and I wouldn't wish it on anybody. Depending on the locale, some small rodents can carry plague and/or Hantavirus. It pays to know what's safest to eat in your area. Down heah iyun the south, it's hard to beat a good turtle soup, and the turtle is usually kind enough to provide the cookpot. Up Nawth, I heah Grizz is good, if'n you can skin it.
@UncleMorgan Termites are OK raw. Never ate grizz; but my mother, the kitchen master sergeant, said no more greasy black bear. X2! Rodents carry diseases and I have no desire to learn if cooking kills them.
I love me some turtles to we used to go dive them up in the back water after about 60 we started the cleaning we used a jigsaw and pocket knife we would cook them by breading and frying then put in a crock pot and cook 8 hours make gravy and served over white rice. Could tell you about the big green turtles.
ask and it is given... thanks for the 3 receipies for 'winnowed termites' lol it could be worse, you could eat 3 day old road kill =)
Actually, it was the fleas on the rats and squirrels, that carried plague. Wiped out about a third of Europe.
I've had mountain lion served, once, and jerky. Didn't much like either. But it was edible. I had lots of different jerkys. Bison, aligator, mountain lion, elk, .... (I got a gift of samples one year)
For us here on the lake extreme foods would be Racoon, Possum,Turtle, Frog, Swans, Cranes, squirrels and Muskrats. We have plenty of Geese, ducks, fish and wild rabbits to go with our eggs, Chickens and Tame Rabbits. No need to eat Bugs here. Today looking out on the lake (right now) I see about 30 ducks in one area on the water. Another 10 to 12 Geese are nesting in the cat tails. I happen to know that there over a hundred Geese across the street nesting in the swamp lake.
