Everett, Wash.
Published: Friday, September 26, 2008

Bug Blast might test fearlessness

Insect lovers will gather at the Burke Museum at the UW to celebrate bugs, and maybe even eat some.

By Andrea McInnis
Herald Writer

 Remember when you were a child and your mother told you never to put a bug in your mouth because it was just plain yucky? You won't get that same advice from Burke Museum staff on Sunday. On the contrary, the bravest souls will be encouraged to try some.

The Seattle museum is serving up the 10th edition of its popular Bug Blast event, this year focusing on how bugs are important to culinary traditions of the world, on bug fashions for humans, and, as always, on helping visitors identify the species they bring in from their own back yards.

"The Bug Blast events were founded to bring together kids interested in bugs from around the Puget Sound area and show them they are not alone," the Burke's curatorial associate of arachnids and Bug Blast organizer Rod Crawford said. "In their everyday lives, such kids may be surrounded by peers who think bugs are yucky. Another main purpose is to show parents and other adults that people of any age interested in bugs are not weird."

Together with members of Scarabs -- The Bug Society, the Burke staff will be on hand to make sure the event satisfies visitors' curiosity. For example, they will bring out thousands of bugs from the museum's collection -- and invite amateur collectors to bring their own -- for visitors to touch, see and even taste.

Throughout the event, The Bug Chef, aka biologist, naturalist and wildlife author David George Gordon, will prepare recipes from his "Eat a Bug" cookbook and, at the same time, share his cultural knowledge of those around the world who do, indeed, eat bugs -- and nutritional bug facts, on top of that.

"Several lucky audience members will be called on stage to sample the dishes, which include scorpions, grasshoppers and crickets," Gordon said, though he opted to keep details of the dishes a secret. "I plan on making one dish for everyone to sample at the end of each demo." The demonstrations will take place at 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m., just outside the museum's front entrance.

"Dr. Glenn Kohler, the new state forest entomologist, is new to Bug Blast; he's bringing up a forest insect display from Olympia, and says he will demonstrate how wood-boring beetles cause staining and decay, 'using baked potatoes as a surrogate for wood,' " Crawford added.

Hands-on activities, including a craft session entitled "Bugs of the Future," will be geared to all ages. In addition, visitors will get to try on special bug-eye glasses, examine tiny bugs through a microscope and watch glassed-in ant and honeybee colonies at work. They also can watch the interactions of butterflies, spiders, beetles, bees and bug-eating plants, and, with the help of master composters, can dig for the bugs that recycle garden waste.

These are all opportunities for visitors to learn how insects and spiders keep the biological world in working order, Burke staff members said.
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