11 October 2007

Eating the Enemy

| Dark and Mysterious
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All right, I’ve had it with the bogong moths at work. And since they are dying in vast numbers on my carpet, I figured I shouldn’t let it be in vain. I’m finally going to try and eat some of them and see what all the fuss is about.

So…how does one go about this? I hear the Ironbark Cafe is cooking them up in various tizzied-up ways, but I’m after a reliable, non-fancy recipe where I can just rip off the wings and put them in a pan or something. Any ideas????

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Fresh is best. Here’s how, in the dark…place torch under chin, open wide – they just fly in.

Ingeegoodbee3:24 pm 11 Oct 07

If you wanted to get all authentic, the historical accounts of Aboriginal preparation of the moths indicate that the moths were ‘cooked’ on the hot coals of a fire and that when the wings and legs had been scorched off the moth was considered ready. You can eat ’em just like that or grind the moths into a paste (a bit like bug pate). Either way they’re sort of a vaguely oily cross between macadamia and avocado.

Dark and Mysterious2:29 pm 11 Oct 07

Bit harsh on Armidale, Philbert, but yeah, you are spot on – that’s why I was there. My first graduation (but second qualification), but now I feel like I’ve really graduated. Well, I applauded everyone so you got some appreciation from me as well.

I wonder if you sneakily tossed your mortarboard in the air when nobody was looking like I did? 😉

Bogong recipe :
1 x handful of bogongs.
2 x clove of garlic.
Cook gently in extra virgin olive oil until tender.

Throw the whole lot ( pan inclusive ) into bin.

Order woodfired pizza from Civic ( and don’t quibble at the price )

Enjoy .

philbert83au1:42 pm 11 Oct 07

Dark and Mysterious: Congrats on graduation…me too. Can’t think of any other reason to have been in Armidale last weekend.

Apparently locusts aren’t bad eating, although again they’re a pain to scrub off the front of the car.

chocolate strawberry bogongs, not chocolate salty bogongs !

hingo_VRCalaisV612:58 pm 11 Oct 07

“Suck on my chocolate salty bogongs, put em in your mouth and suck em…”

Maelinar’s Chocolate Bogongs !

yum.

is how they taste, a little butter, i find, is good. mebbea sprinkle of paprika – hungarian bogong surprise!

Eww? 0_o I guess if you really must try them, disguise the flavour/texture with as much garlic and other additive as you can. You could even try a homeopathic approach – fry one in a pan, rinse the pan, then cook something else in it. I think that’s about as close as I’d like to get to eating moth.

Given they have a ‘nutty’ taste, I’ll get all Jamie Oliver on you all and after sauteeing them lightly to cook them, dip them in strawberry syrup and then chocolate dip them.

Maybe serve it on a stick if I’m feeling fancy.

Dark and Mysterious12:20 pm 11 Oct 07

Concur on the strangely concentrated nature of these beasties – I’ve got nary a one fluttering about my northside house, but come into Barton and hello bogongs.

Even worse, some offices in my building are infested, whilst some have only a couple of lonely creatures hanging about! Who can fathom the psychology of the moth. Not I.

I drove to Armidale and back last weekend, and not a moth there, but billions of white butterflies, which I now have to scrape off the front of my car.

Wonder how they taste? 😉

@RAGD:
Tuggeranong (as in the Hyperdome, Bunnings, Centrelink\FaCSIA)is full of them… Great big huddled masses of them under the eaves, dying on roads and footpaths, and swarming inside commercial premises of a night time if you leave a window open and a light on…

Just grab a fist of them and throw them into a warm frying pan. Too hot and they’ll burn, but on their own they have a kind of nutty flavour and mothy texture.

Danman_straight6_EB_Falcodore11:46 am 11 Oct 07

None up north in Ngunnawal either – but I would suggest sautee’d with garlic onions and a good cold pressed virgin olive oil – or just drown them in tomato sauce and eat em raw – either way they ar still a moth … eww gross man

Where are all these moths everyone keeps talking about? I haven’t seen any where down south. Have they just been drawn to the lights up north or have then all been cooked and eaten already, leaving none for us southsiders?

In my experience it doesn’t matter how you prepare them … it’s always like eating rancid balls of cotton wool.

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