Mexican-born artist and chef Monica Martinez recently started a San Francisco-based Mexican food cart business, a ‘prehispanic snakeria’ called Don Bugito, which features wax moth larvae tacos and mealworm ice cream on its menu. She is also behind Wurm-Haus, a home mealworm farm project as a way to farm these food sources at home. To start her edible insect business, she had some assistance from La Cocina, a San Francisco nonprofit organization that cultivates budding food entrepreneurs.
Kirsten Dirksen of faircompanies.com made a short film about Don Bugito and the future of meat. The full story from faircompanies.com explores the use of insects as a low-cost and high protein food source.
Martinez, originally from Mexico, didn’t grow up eating insects, but for Don Bugito she is drawing from her country’s prehispanic food culture for inspiration. And worldwide, our ancestors probably relied on insects for food, and today, 80% of the world’s nations still count them as a protein source.
images via Don Bugito
