Creepy-crawly, but also crispy-crunchy.
Brave Brooklynites chowed down insects and worms from grubs to grasshoppers at the first Brooklyn Bugs Festival.
"I'm curious to know how insects taste, so I decided, 'Why not?'" said one attendee. "Apparently, this is a fritter made of grasshoppers I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right. It honestly just taste like fritters if you don't look at it.
For most people in the developed world, the thought of eating bugs makes their skin crawl.
But here's food for thought: 80 percent of the world's cultures are fully on board the bug bandwagon. And the United Nations recommends insects as a sustainable source of protein to support the world's growing population.
"A big part of the mission is to change Americans' perception on insects, from that creepy-crawly bug in your apartment to actually being a sustainable nutritious and delicious part of your diet," said Joseph Yoon, organizer of Brooklyn Bugs.
"People in New York only see bugs at their worst. They see bedbugs and cockroaches and flies. They think they're gross. And maybe rightly so. But they don't see all the groovy bugs like praying mantises and butterflies. So they're sort of like, 'Ugh, why would I eat a bug?'" said bug chef David George Gordon.
At Brooklyn Bugs, you can sample raw scorpions and silkworms, and prepared food like Tempura Fried Grasshopper
For the faint of heart, there's a middle ground: to enjoy the nutritional benefits of insects without looking at them.
Powdered crickets, anyone?
"Our products include crickets in a smooth and blended way," said Robyn Shapiro, an edible insect entrepreneur. "A lot of times, people try our products, they go, 'Wait, this is so delicious, I don't even taste the cricket!'"
So I guess I had to try and conquer my fear of bugs by eating one. I'm not going to be going up for grub like this anytime soon, but I did try a cricket scallion cake. It was actually good!
Many other first-timers here aren't sharing my reluctance to sample so-called delicacies like this.
"One of the things that I did eat that nobody else ate was the waterbug, and it took a while to chew through," said one festival-goer.
Plenty of opportunities to bug out at the Brooklyn Bugs festival.
For more information, head to brooklynbugs.com.