Eating Creepy Crawlies at Hawkers Market

David George Gordon aka "The Bug Chef" made an appearance at the Hawkers Market on Saturday, delighting (or scaring depending who you talk to) foodies with his exotic selection of eats.

The Seattle chef creates culinary masterpieces using all sorts of insects, arachnides and other bugs that you would not normally thing to put into your mouth. At the Hawkers Market, he served up crickets, grasshoppers, tarantulas and scorpions.

I was one of many people who was intrigued and ready to get out of my comfort zone to try these alternative food sources. I had already made up my mind on first hearing about this event to try everything he was making!

 David started off small. Little crickets from Mexico that were dried and marinated in lime and salt.

 He dipped them in chocolate. Bug fondue!

Here's how one of them looked like. A surprising number of people asked to try them without the chocolate!

Here's another way of cooking crickets. Baby crickets tossed in corn, peppers and onions. Adds an extra crunch to the vegetables! Hahah. These were delicious by the way.  I've eaten crickets before at the Gears of War 3 Pre-launch party back in 2011, so these were nothing special to me. I came for the bigger bugs!

Next he served "Sheesh! Kabobs" containing grasshoppers.

Ok these are a bit scarier, but so cool to look at!

Here goes! (Thanks Rick Chung for the photo of me!) Haha I bit off the head first then ate the body. It wasn't so bad! Actually, doesn't tastes like anything. I can taste the seasoning, and some of the crunchy exoskeleton but no goo or anything that I was afraid of. What I was concerned about was having exoskeleton stuck in between my teeth. HA!

Ah! Now for the bigger bugs! I was waiting for these! Tarantulas!

First he singed the hairs off of the spiders body.

 Here's the hairless bugger. I don't know about you, but it looks a lot creepier hairless. O_o

Chef David deep fried the thing in tempura batter and dusted it with paprika.

Doesn't look as bad deep fried. Kind disappointed we don't each get a whole spider hahaha.

I had to settle for a leg. You know the saying - everything tastes good when it's been deep fried? It applies to spiders! Pretty delicious! Someone had the body, which had to be cut open to expose the meat inside and he said it tasted like soft shell crab. I'm not surprised since spiders, crabs and lobsters are from the same phylum: arthropoda; meaning bugs and crustaceans are quite closely related. When you think about it, crabs and lobsters look pretty scary as well...

The last thing to try was the scorpion.

 He removed the stinger, dipped them into cream and coated them in cornmeal before pan frying them.

Chef David explained like a lobster, the best part of a scorpion is the claws and the tail - where the muscle is - the meat!

Bottoms up! I wasn't as impress by the scorpion. I can hardly taste anything. Plus the shell of the scorpion is much harder and you had to spit it out. In that respect, it really was like a lobster or crab! If only scorpions come in bigger, lobster sizes. Haha! Can you imagine eating that?! You know, I'd be first in line to try that!

Bugs are part of many people's diet in other parts of the world, and they are more sustainable as a protein food source than farm animals, so why not? Insects could be the food of the future! It's all just phycological because when it comes down to it, it's all just protein - meat.