EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT) – At some cook-outs, those pesky bugs just won’t stop flying around your food. Well, what if your food was actually cooked with insects? That was the case at one Evansville business Friday.
Brandon Runyon, an entomologist with Swat Pest Management, decided to have a little fun with the company’s client appreciation event and blood drive. “We use an excuse here that’s, if we’re doing something weird it’s because the entomologist got bored,” says Runyon. “And that’s kind of where we’re at today, hey, let’s have a good cause and also something where we can have some fun. They don’t let me out of the office enough and where I can’t get out there and have my fun, so, you know, I get to do this kind of stuff.”
Runyon’s recipes did include traditional foods, like burgers and hot dogs, as well as a more adventurous menu of meal worm brownies, chocolate chip cricket cookies, and air fried crickets. “I put them in the air fryer,” explains Runyon, “I have a lemon pepper, and for the local favorite, I went ahead and put them in Grippo’s.”
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Some brave eaters decided to dig in and enjoy some of the insect-inspired treats. Runyon says the best part of being an entomologist is seeing the reactions from people eating his creations. “Right now, entomophasia and eating insects is more of a niche thing and saying, ‘Hey, I did it’,” says Runyon. “Kind of like when you go down to Fall Festival and go, ‘I ate a bug club’, kind of the same thing.”…