It's just cricket

Sunday 28 July 2019

We tried eating crickets as sold by a Guernsey company sourcing their produce from Vietnam.

While not something you'd expect to find in the cupboard of most bakers just yet, cricket flour can actually be used in much the same way as ordinary flours.

Earlier this year Head Chef Hayden Smith spoke to Express about his new business venture inspired by a motorcycle foodie trip across Vietnam. The idea was to bring crickets as a food source to the West, where it still raises some eyebrows by comparison to Asian countries.

Crickets are grown in lab conditions in Vietnam; roasted ground and packed. "Cricket flour" can be used to add flavour or for texture and structure alongside ordinary flour.  The product has now launched in the UK and Channel Islands on sale via Amazon where it has been receiving positive reviews. 

As people are beginning to cast a critical eye over their normal eating habits with the environmental impact in mind, the unique selling point of cricket flour is that along with being gluten, lactose and nut free it is far more sustainable than other protein sources such as beef.

Express was brought some fresh bakes from Hayden made with cricket flour to try. Although the vegetarians in the office decided to give it a miss the rest of the team tucked in to the almond and chocolate banana bread  

Whether or not the product is friendly for vegetarians is perhaps subjective and down to a person's own motivations for taking up vegetarianism - in the office our reporter Maisie simply found the idea too "weird" after years of avoiding consuming animals. That was despite Maisie being the one to point out that lots of insects are in fact killed during the harvest of vegetables. 

People will be averse to eating insects for a load of reasons, cultural and otherwise. Our fear of spiders is supposed to be innate, so the idea of turning on a similar creature and adding it to a meal is a hard one to square. 

Pictured: Banana Bread made with Cricket Hop Co. flour. 

Although the cricket flour in the pouch has a strong smoky smell a little bit like rabbit feed - not totally unappetising though rather just unfamiliar - within the banana bread the only smell is sweetness from the other ingredients. 

I was expecting the bread to either be too solid or too crumby in texture not knowing what to expect at all from a protein rich bread product. The recipe online instructs 50g of cricket flour added to 225g of plain flour, so it's more of an addition than a main ingredient. 

Other recipes on the website have a similar approach adding the flour to mostly vegetarian dishes for flavour and protein. 

Pictured: Reporter Alex trying out cricket banana bread. 

The verdict in the office was that the banana bread was definitely moreish as well as filling and tasted "just like banana bread" - one of the reporters was actually disappointed by that. 

At £7.99 for 100g it's probably something that will attract those who need to increase their protein intake rather than as a seasoning but as a company seemingly with its conscience finely tuned it's good to be able to support an innovative local business. 

Pictured top: Cricket flour.