h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is a good article.

In Spain, there is a type of cheese which is infested with maggots. This is supposed to be a great delicacy. I haven't tried it.

You refer to Earthworms at one point. These are not insects.

Great article. Is there any insect which can't be eaten??!

I agree that it's a great shame the preconceived opinions about what's edible and what's not in western culture. I've never eaten a plateful of insects, and if I did it would probably make me violently sick; not because they're inedible, but because I've been brought up to believe that they're inedible.

Even if earthworms aren't insects, I'm interested to hear that they're edible. They're an extremely common creature really. Are these one particular type of earthworm, and/or the common earthworm found in the UK?

I might have to cook an insect meal sometime to freak out my housemates

I'd personally draw the line at eating certain spiders (the kind that shoot out a gob of white goop when you squish them).

But otherwise, if insects were the size of (say) lobsters or soft-shell crabs, you could probably serve them at dinner and it would be hard to tell the difference.

True... come to think of it, I quite happily eat prawns, which are insect sized and look similar.

Spiders? Hmm... I'm not aware of any edible spiders... Hey that white goop is probably the stuff they use to make their webs... quite an amazing substance physically.

The Powers at h2g2 Towers, in their wisdom, changed the title of the yarn. My original title was "Small Food", a name that is inclusive of, in a caring, sharing way, of worms.

Ah well. Shame, I prefer your title!
It appears to have 'grubs' in the title - this includes earthworms doesn't it? I think they might have just changed it again.

Hey, do you know much about the flatworm? I may have got my facts wrong, but I have a feeling there's a flatworm that's native to New Zealand, but has appeared in the UK somehow. It eats earthworms and is causing all kinds of problems in some places.

Hmm. It's a shame slugs aren't edible, there's plenty of those here. (and that would *really* freak people out )

While "Small Foods" is a fun name once you know what the topic is, I would have expected something to do with appetizers or perhaps miniature vegetables.

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The New Zealand native flat worm is a problem because its slime kills the Pommie worms. They are not a problem in NZ where the native birds keep them under control.

We will take the worms back if you come and collect the introduced gorse, thistles and rabbits.

Sounds like a fair deal

Hmm I can imagine rabbits, gorse and thistles being a problem... they're annoying enough here, but at least they live in harmony with other stuff. The worse aliens we have here (apart from those from Betelgeuse) are rhodedendrons, which are bad enough when you're trying to spell their name, let along taking over your garden; and Japanese knotweed, which has poisonous bristles. Both of which are virtually impossible to kill without using huge quantities of really nasty stuff.

Um... you could eat the rabbits... or introduce myxamytosis, which has all but wiped out the rabbit population in the UK. It's a pretty horrible disease though and I wouldn't even wish it on pesky alien rabbits.

A few South Island farmers spread myxamytosis illegally a few years ago. (They got it from Australia) Because it was not introduced in a controlled way many 2nd and 3rd generation rabbits have developed immunity to it.

Its a pity the narrow-minded anti-fur-products zealots carry so much emotional sway. I imagine a nice rabbit-fur hat could be a big seller in bleak countries like America and Britain.

well, the problem with fur is when it's farmed in cruel ways... and the big problem in the UK is that the most prized fur is mink, and minks aren't native, and cause huge problems when they escape.

Some fur protesters set free several hundred mink from a mink farm here last year... which is the most stupid thing they could possibly have done... the effect on the local wildlife was devestating. (and the effect on the people they bit when they got really hungry).

That's the trouble with zealots. They don't think things through.

Anyway back to worms. An interesting article about earth worms has just been posted on the Peer Review page. Peregrin, you might like to comment on the killer-kiwi-kritters in the yarn's forum - suggest the researcher includes info about them. Creatures that travelled from one side of the globe to the other to indulge in "wormacide" deserve a mention in a yarn about worms

cheers...

I've always wondered how they got here. I imagine they came with some potted plants or something, but it's rather more amusing to think of them tunnelling here themselves.

Oh hang on, are the flatworms the ones who can't tunnel, and that's why they use earthworm's holes?

I'll do a bit more research into the matter before contributing to anything official looking...

..eerrrmm....off the subject of worms and back to slugs.

Slugs are mollusks, related to oysters and squid...not worms or insects. Last time I checked, they are edible(just go easy on the salt!).

NM

....oh....must say....

D**N good Article, Loony!!!

NM

really? cool. Do you know if any species are edible/tasty in particular? Like the edible snail versus the Roman snail, which is quite disgusting...

re. the salt thing, I don't suppose anyone else here has seen the episode of Futurama when this becomes a reality...?

Administrator-General, I'm ashamed of you. Squashing a spider! These disgusting evil looking creatures are our friends, because they eat dirty Mr Fly.

Yeah, I know Mr. Spider is our friend, and I usually release him into the wild when I find him inside. The rest of the time, I let him stick around, to help controll my indoor ant problem.

But the one I found didn't look like a spider... until I squished it. Spiders usually aren't yellow, are they?

There are yellow spiders. Just count the legs. If there are eight, you've got a spider.