I love eating bugs.
More than that, I love helping other people eat bugs. I love to watch the drama unfold on my friends’ faces: the anxiety before trying something taboo, the uncomfortable moment of mental commitment, the “wow factor” when they realize they actually like what they’re eating. I call it #MyFirstBug, and it gets me every time.
Last year, I assembled Bugs for Beginners, an e-book with more edible insect recipes and full-color images than any entomophagy cookbook before it. If you look inside you’ll find the Bugs for Beginners ebook has 150+ images of 86 recipes by 20+ contributors from more than 10 countries—by far the largest, most exhaustive edible insect cookbook to date.
I didn’t assemble Bugs for Beginners alone, in this endeavor I was joined by innovators all over the Bug-osphere: ACHETA, BUGS CAFE, JUSTIN BUTNER, CHIRPS, CRICK PRO QUO, CRICKÉ, ESSENTO, FOOD INSECTS, GASTROBUG, GLOBAL BUGS, INCREDIBLE FOODS, LITHIC, MERCI MERCADO, MICRONUTRIS, MINUS FARM, ALY MOORE, NUE SEATTLE, DON PEAVY, PRIMAL FUTURE, THITIWAT TANTRAGARN, THE BUG LADY, CHEF JOSEPH YOON
Bugs for Beginners has been very well received within the community of entomocentric cuisine enthusiasts. Much to my excitement, a Bugs for Beginners photo will even be included in an upcoming National Geographic textbook.
But the book does receive one common complaint:
Why is this only available digitally? I want to hold it in my hands!
The reason is, of course, that I can assemble an ebook and all it costs me is my time and energy. Which I happily gave, to assemble the cookbook I wanted to see: a cookbook that treated edible insects not like an anthropological oddity, nor a bizarre foods sideshow, nor an apocalyptic last resort, but as a culinary niche, like any other. I wanted an edible insect cookbook so full of photos that would make you so excited and so hungry, you wouldn’t know if you wanted to keep reading or put it down and eat.
Assembling this ebook was a labor of love for me and absolutely free to do, other than the cost of food ingredients (which I, and my friends, and family, happily ate after the pictures were taken yum yum yum).
But now, I would like to give my fellow Ento enthusiasts what they’ve been asking for all year: Bugs for Beginners, in their hands. In their bookshelves. In their kitchens!
Of course, I can’t pay to print a book, with real ink, real paper, with time and energy alone. This time I’ll need money.
This is not an vague, preemptive promise: Bugs for Beginners already exists (digitally). I’m not asking to be paid for my time to assemble it, nor even the ingredients required for the recipes (since I already ate them). I just need help physically printing the books themselves.
In return, I can give thanks in the web site and in the printed book. I can give personally autographed copies of the book. I can screenprint limited-edition T shirts for you, hand-printed by my very own appendages (fun fact: I love screen printing shirts for myself and my friends). I can even give you a personal tour of the city that made me fall in love with entomophagy, and the bugs I love best in it.
Will you help me help others let Bugs for Beginners be their gateway bug to the delicious world of edible insects?
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, concerns, comments, about this project.
I have only a rough idea of how to get this book printed and shipped to the United States. I can’t use Amazon Createspace because there are too many pictures in this book; if I did it would have to cost over $100! I will need to get it published via a publishing house overseas, just like most big publishing houses do. My husband has independently published a book full of color photographs, so I know it can be done, and for a much lower price than traditional publishers would have you believe. I have researched several printers, and what’s involved in importing the books to the United States, and then distributing them afterwards. But I also think there will likely be a lot of unpleasant surprises along the way. Come along the adventure!