Eventually we’ll all be eating bugs. We’ve been hearing it for decades. So I’m glad there are people out there trying to make them taste like a Doritos flavor. One such brand is Hotlix, which specializes in bug-based snacks like BBQ larvae, strawberry flavored scorpion lollipops, and chip-inspired cricket snacks (for humans, not turtles) called Crick-ettes. (They also market toothpicks, presumably because no one wants to spend the day trying to pick a cricket leg out from between their teeth.) To assess how the bug-based snack effort is going, I tried the Sour Cream and Onion Crick-ettes. How were they? Let’s hop to it.
Are sour cream and onion crickets any good?
The Crick-ettes come in a small box—like the smallest box of chalk you can buy—and there aren’t many of them, no more than a dozen. They are whole crickets; there’s no denying their genus or species. I popped one cricket in my mouth whole and, upon first bite, the first thing I noticed was the crunchy head. But then came the papery wings, which instantly got caught in my teeth (here’s where those toothpicks come in handy). But I can accept that. I eat seaweed snacks and popcorn without hesitation and those things get caught in my teeth way worse. So, the texture is good. But the flavor? It tastes faintly like wheat with a slight bitter finish.
Where is the sour cream and onion flavor?
If you’re selling me a box of sour cream and onion flavored crickets, then I mostly want to taste sour cream and onion. I would have the same expectation of a sour cream and onion chip; I don’t want that chip to taste like potato! Pepperidge Farm needs to get in here and flavor blast these sour cream and onion crickets like they do their Goldfish flavors. Or Doritos needs to get into the bug biz and really saturate the crunchy critters with a Cool Ranch powder. I really don’t mind eating crickets, but I do take exception to a flavorless snack. Also, give me more of them. I can’t get full off a single handful of crickets!
I welcome a future when there’s a whole cricket snacks aisle in the grocery store, I just hope by then they’ve figured out how to make them Flamin’ Hot.
Try them yourself and let me know what you think in the comments: Buy from Amazon
We’ve teamed up with Cheddar News to try some of the wildest and most interesting foods out there so you don’t have to. Let us know in the comments what we should try next.
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!