'Bug Chef' Cooks Up Insect-Based Thanksgiving Dishes In Times Square
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- If you're looking for some extra protein this Thanksgiving in addition to the traditional turkey, man known as the Bug Chef has some ideas for you.
Chef David George Gordon was cooking up some samples of his favorite stuffing and relish recipes on Saturday and Sunday at the Ripley's Believe It or Not! Times Square Odditorium, 234 W. 42nd St. Anyone who eats a sample will win half-priced admission at the museum.
But there is a catch -- the recipes in question just so happen to contain insects.
"We have cranberry cockroach relish, we have stuffing with chestnuts and crickets, and then we have dessert – we have chocolate covered chapulines – those are very small grasshoppers from Mexico – that have been seasoned with chile and lime and salt," Gordon told 1010 WINS.
Gordon said New Yorkers have been very hesitant to try the food he has made, because New Yorkers generally only encounter bugs in unpleasant situations, since the city is not a very buggy area.
"New Yorkers are very, very cautious about insects, so it's hard to get a New Yorker on the street in Times Square, right in front of Ripley's Believe It or Not!, to eat something like an oven-baked cockroach or even an oven-baked cricket," he said.
Those who do elect to try one of Gordon's concoctions will spin a wheel to determine what they will be sampling.
"We have a special wheel – it's called the Wheel of Entomophagy," he said. "You spin the wheel, and if it lands on something, you either get your choice – you try a dessert; a main course, which in this case might be a centipede. You get all different things – the chef's choice, I get to pick. And we have one category called mystery meat."
Gordon was set to be out at Ripley's on Saturday until 3 p.m., and on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Will you eat an insect-based Thanksgiving offering? Leave your comments below...
