“Think of it as cricket cakes or fish cakes,” the chef told a man in the buffet line, offering a piping hot, spicy laksa (a coconut noodle soup filled with “textured cricket protein”).
Next to it was a plate of chilli crickets, a bug version of Singapore's popular dish, chilli crickets, which are stir-fried mud crabs drizzled with a sweet, rich chilli sauce.
It looked no different from any other buffet, except that the main ingredient in every dish was crickets.
The line featured a woman carefully arranging fried noodles topped with chopped crickets on a plate, and a man constantly grilling a young chef.
You might expect the restaurant diners to splurge. After all, they were among more than 600 scientists, entrepreneurs and environmentalists from around the world who had descended on Singapore on a mission to make insects tasty. The name of the conference said it all: Insects Feed the World.
And more of them were drawn to the buffet next to the insect-filled food, which some would argue was ordinary: wild barramundi with lemongrass and lime, grilled sirloin steak with onion marmalade, coconut vegetable curry.
According to the United Nations, about 2 billion people, or about a quarter of the world's population, already include insects in their daily diet.
As the tribe of insect advocates who champion insects as healthy, eco-friendly choices grows, more people need to join them. But will the prospect of saving the planet be enough to get people to sample the scariest bugs?
