Mealworms: the pasta of the future

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At the television program Inland I saw culinary specialist Janny van der Heijden (also known from the book Pasta di Janny) making pasta with the food of the future. That food of the future would be a meal containing insects, such as the mealworm.

Lots of protein

The mealworm is actually a larva of a beetle and contains a lot of proteins. This replaces a meal based on meat. And cutting back on meat, many people want to think about that. However, to get people excited about eating mealworms, you have to come up with something really good.

So Janny was educated about grinding freeze-dried mealworms for preparing fresh pasta. The Italian dish in a new jacket. By grinding the mealworm you get a kind of flour, which you mix with the regular 00 flour that you use to make fresh pasta.

Mealworms in your pasta... Yum! — There they are… the mealworms as the basis for the pasta!

test subjects

I thought it was a funny idea and invited 4 Dutch acquaintances to come and try this with me. I think you need to find the right target audience for this. People who are willing to think outside the box. Fortunately, I found 4 subjects who accepted the invitation to do the experiment at my home.

I ordered a jar of freeze-dried mealworms from an internet store. Because no, the freeze-dried mealworm is not yet available in the better supermarket or delicatessen in 2016. They were delivered to my home and after I got my 4-year-old son's boyfriend wide-eyed when I offered him a mealworm instead of a bag of chips as a snack, I got to work.

Farfalle all'amatriciana I made, with some roasted peppers on the side. I shared my activity on Facebook, and over the next few days, concerned neighbors whispered to me, "What about the mealworms?" I showed the link of the video from Landineloos to an Italian friend who likes to cook. But she informed me that when the day comes when we have to switch to eating insects, she will really become a vegetarian.

The taste of mealworms

How does that taste then? Well, the taste of a freeze-dried mealworm is a bit nutty. And if you use them in pasta, the taste is comparable to that of whole-wheat pasta. I was not allowed to point out to my husband during dinner that he was eating mealworms. I already told him, but he wanted to fool himself. My son didn't mind at all. If you are laconic about something, children will not be difficult about it either. That's my experience. The main problem with the mealworm is not its taste, but the idea that you are eating worms. Or larvae.