{"id":27227,"date":"2019-05-01T14:31:49","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T19:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=27227"},"modified":"2019-05-01T14:31:49","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T19:31:49","slug":"apsus-amy-wright-publishes-new-essay-collection-on-entomophagy-or-eating-bugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2019\/05\/01\/apsus-amy-wright-publishes-new-essay-collection-on-entomophagy-or-eating-bugs\/","title":{"rendered":"APSU\u2019s Amy Wright publishes new essay collection on entomophagy, or eating bugs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – The risotto had crickets in it. Dr. Amy Wright, Austin Peay State University (APSU) professor of languages and literature, knew the insects were dead, but something about their small faces bothered her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were whole crickets, and they appeared to be looking back at us,\u201d she said. \u201cI said, \u2018I don\u2019t know if I can do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/a>

Austin Peay State University professor Dr. Amy Wright.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Wright had toyed with the idea of tasting a bug ever since the United Nations\u2019 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued its 2012 report identifying insects as \u201ca potential source for conventional production (mini-livestock) of protein, either for direct human consumption, or indirectly in recomposed foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The topic fascinated her, and she knew if she ever hoped to write about it, she\u2019d actually have to eat a bug. So Wright scooped up a fork-full of cricket mushroom risotto, ignored the little faces staring at her and took a bite.<\/p>\n

That evening marked the beginning of a new creative journey for the Austin Peay State University writing professor. In the years that followed, her nonfiction essays about entomophagy \u2013 eating bugs \u2013 have appeared in prestigious journals and magazines across the country, and late last month, Iris Press published \u201cThink I\u2019ll Go Eat a Worm,\u201d a chapbook of Wright\u2019s essays.<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/a>

Austin Peay State University professor Dr. Amy Wright with her book “Think I\u2019ll Go Eat a Worm”<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cUsing both personal and historical accounts, Wright creates vivid landscapes for the reader demonstrating that insects can fit just as well into our lives as any of the foods we traditionally eat in our society,\u201d Anthropologist and author Julie Lesnick said. \u201cWright is masterful at drawing you into her world, and everyone could benefit from taking a quiet moment to join her there.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Wright, eating insects isn\u2019t some novelty or fad. As the UN\u2019s FAO report pointed out, the world\u2019s population will likely increase to 9 billion people by 2050, \u201cforcing an increased food\/feed output from available agro-ecosystems resulting in an even greater pressure on the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

[320left]\u201cIt\u2019s going to stick around,\u201d Wright said. \u201cMeat is getting more expensive, land is getting scarcer, water resources are getting more compromised, we know about pesticides and herbicides. And the pollinators are dying as a result of big agriculture. The option already exists to choose between lab-grown hamburgers and crickets.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her essay \u201cM\u0113l,\u201d first published in the Kenyon Review, Wright mixes history and science with her own personal experience of feasting on insects. The night she ate cricket risotto also happened to be her first date with Dr. Don Sudbrink, chair of the APSU Department of Agriculture and a veteran insect-eater. Before trying her first insect, Wright told her date she wasn\u2019t sure she could go through with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon reassures me,\u201d she writes, \u201cthat while grasshopper legs can get stuck in your teeth and should be removed, crickets can keep their appendages, which soften like the petiole of a spinach leaf.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Essay<\/a>

Essay collection “Think I\u2019ll Go Eat a Worm”<\/p><\/div>\n

For the squeamish, the idea of looking at small cricket bodies or pulling grasshopper legs from their teeth might be too much to ask. That\u2019s why, Wright explains, advances in entomophagy are removing the personality from this food source.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are chips that you wouldn\u2019t be able to tell from Doritos,\u201d she said. \u201cThe insects just look like pepper, and they add some protein to it. That\u2019s where it\u2019s going to go \u2013 chips and pasta so you can\u2019t really tell there\u2019s anything in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, just as a bad chef can ruin a beautiful cut of meat, Wright discovered that canned silkworm pupae can sour a person\u2019s appetite. During that first date with Sudbrink, the couple popped open a can they\u2019d bought in Nashville.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say what tasted like bite-sized turkey livers steeped in formaldehyde did not lead easy romance to our stir fry,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

The book, filled with wit and beauty, is now available at the press, www.irisbooks.com<\/a>, and at www.amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – The risotto had crickets in it. Dr. Amy Wright, Austin Peay State University (APSU) professor of languages and literature, knew the insects were dead, but something about their small faces bothered her. \u201cThese were whole crickets, and they appeared to be looking back at us,\u201d she said. \u201cI said, \u2018I don\u2019t know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[5991,23,10061,262,512,825,5098,33521,3701,19144],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-759","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27228,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27227\/revisions\/27228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}