What's so bad about eating cockroaches, Curtis? - Implications of that cockroach scene in Snowpiercer

      Last week our class delved into the world of food sustainability, convenience, and responsibility, with the social implications of those topics proving somewhat troubling. Out of the discussions and documentaries viewed, what stuck out to me most was the documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste. I feel that Wasted! focused on a theme that’s been touched on at least once in each week consecutively: what we are willing to eat and what we aren’t based only on our western desire for aesthetic pleasure in food. Wasted! touched on this theme several times through individuals such as Dan Barber, Dave Bowien, Dave Pasternack, and Mario Batali in their insistence towards eating animals and plants, or the parts of animals and plants, that are considered inedible by the general public, such as cauliflower stems, pork uterus, or porgy (aka Orata Americano). After giving it some thought I couldn’t help but relate this theme of aesthetic food pleasure to one of my all-time favorite science-fiction films: Snowpiercer. Directed by Joon-ho Bong (who brought us Okja), this dystopian film is one that you probably wouldn’t expect to have anything to do with food on a deep level, but there is just one scene that’s honestly bugged me since I first saw the film, and it involves cockroaches. This film is full to the brim with social commentary (mostly having to do with class), but for this blog I’m just going to focus on cockroaches and how they are presented as food in the film.

            Before I tackle that scene though, here’s a little background on the film: Snowpiercer takes place in 2031, some years after mankind’s tampering with the climate has caused a new Ice Age. The only living humans left on the planet reside in Snowpiercer, a train that endlessly glides across the frozen landscape fueled by a perpetual motion engine. On this train an individual’s class depends on which train car they’re living in, with the poorest of the poor living in the back of the train (the tail-enders), and the upper class living in the front of the train. The plot of the film revolves around Curtis (Chris ‘Captain America’ Evans) leading the tail-enders on a sort of revolution to take the front of the train by force. If that sounds crazy that’s because this film is wall-to-the-wall, bat-to-the-shit crazy, but that entire plot is beside the point I’m trying to make here which is cockroaches!

           

A little after the start of their bloody revolution, Curtis’s crew find themselves in the train car where the tail-enders’ food is produced, which comes in the form of ‘protein blocks.’ At first overjoyed at the presence of all the food in the processing car, the scene takes a creepy, crawly turn when a tail-ender peers into a vat full of the materials used to make the protein blocks. We hear the tail-ender shout in fright before Curtis arrives at the tail-ender’s side to see what alarmed him. We are treated to Curtis’s shocked expression before we finally see where the protein blocks come from. The viewer may find themselves asking WHAT’S IN THE VAAAT!?!? Could it be severed human heads, unborn fetuses, or… kittens?? Based on the content of this blog you already know the answer: cockroaches. The vat is full of cockroaches being ground up into paste for the protein blocks. One can view the scene here, if they are curious. If you’re anything like me, you probably found the scene to be anti-climatic. Cockroaches are, after all, actually eaten by people today, sometimes as a tasty treat. If you’re not like me however, and had no knowledge of the nutritional benefits of cockroaches prior to the film, then maybe you were just as horrified as Curtis and his compatriots, but honestly, why were they horrified? Curtis even goes as far as to keep the source of the protein blocks a secret from the rest of the tail-enders, but why? They’re living in a time that’s post-apocalypse. The end of the world already happened, and edible resources are finite. Why should they be so mortified at eating bugs for survival? Could they still be hamstrung by western aesthetic standards of food? Curtis is after all (at least on the surface) your standard, strong-willed, white, western action hero, but we do find out later that he’s eaten much worse than cockroach for survival (hint: rhymes with gravy). And even if Curtis is your common westernized action hero, the rest of the tail-enders appear to be a fairly multi-cultural bunch. This scene puzzles me to no end. It’s interesting to note too that the director is South Korean, and a quick Internet search on South Korean foods will yield results such as the popular street food, Beondegi (Silkworm Larvae) and other such foods that many a westerner would consider bizarre. While it may be unwise or ignorant to assume an individual’s tastes in food based on their nationality, I do believe it’s a reasonable assumption to make that Joon-ho Bong may at least be a little bit more familiar with eating insects and other such foods than your average westerner. Seeing as this was also Bong’s first English language film, I wonder if the addition of this scene is Bong poking fun at western standards of eating? But that theory aside, it appears that even in an apocalyptic nightmare-scape, cockroaches are still too gross to eat.  

            Now, what about cockroaches in the real world, particularly the ones in the west? First, can they be eaten? Yes they can. Second, do Americans eat them? Generally, no, they most certainly do not. But why do we feel this way? This can be explained by the average westerner’s natural aversion towards eating anything they don’t find aesthetically pleasing. As Anthony Bourdain pointed out in Wasted! many people in the West scoff at the idea of eating a whole fried fish, head, eyes, and all, while in other cultures this is just the norm. Bugs, like fish heads, are not aesthetically pleasing to the majority of westerners. And forget about disgust on a culinary level, bugs disgust people through their very existence. Some people have phobias of bugs. So even if bugs are a proven form of sustenance in other cultures, the West’s disgust towards them cancels out any chance of looking at bugs as a rational food source. This combination of negative stigma surrounding bugs and an ignorance or flat out refusal to see bugs as food on our part, leads to the lack of bugs we see in the American diet, and to the reactions we saw in the film.

           

But, as previously stated, cockroaches can be eaten, and perhaps even made tasty as well. A quick Internet search for cockroach recipes yields bountiful results, perhaps some that could sway the common American to try a cockroach for dinner. Rove Pest Control, a pest control company based in Minnesota, details several potential recipes for cockroaches, including fried roach, stir-fried roach, and roach tacos, recipes that I’m sure would have had the tail-enders’ mouths watering. Rendering the cockroaches unrecognizable in their food state may also prove appetizing to those averse to eating them. As we saw in Snowpiercer, those in control apparently knew that the only way for them to get the poor to eat roaches was to grind them up into something unrecognizable, and for the most part it worked. We could grind them up, mix the roach meat with breadcrumbs and fry them up into edible balls like hushpuppies; the general public would be none the wiser and may even enjoy the dish.
   

            So, could cockroaches become a popular food? I believe only time will tell. But as Anthony Bourdain pointed out in Wasted! lobster and sea urchins were once considered lower-class and undesirable, but now look at how the tables have turned. Perhaps cockroaches and other such insects may follow the sea urchin's trail. Maybe even arachnids too. It may take a bit of social coercion, but who’s to say that in some years a tarantula won’t be viewed the same way as a Dungeness crab today? Cockroaches and other insects could be ground up and made into something unrecognizable to help popularize insects as a viable alternative to livestock. Maybe Snowpiercer was trying to send us a message in that regard: lessen the disgust by masking the food in a palatably friendly way. The possible implications of eating bugs on a massive scale, to me at least, are thrilling albeit unlikely. Imagine a world where insects became the chief source of protein instead of cows, pigs, and other livestock. It would certainly be more ethical, at least by today’s standards. People generally don’t view cockroaches and other insects as having the same capacity for intelligence and emotion as cows, pigs, and other livestock. Perhaps in a world where insects did replace red meat, insects would earn their own animal rights movements, but for now we’re just going to step on them if they get too close. But having given some thought myself to the possible benefits of eating cockroaches I ask myself again, perhaps for the umpteenth time since starting this blog: why wouldn’t somebody want to eat a cockroach? Perhaps by learning why people don’t want to eat roaches on a societal level we could change the current status quo, but until then I suppose we’ll just keep leaving their smashed carapaces baking in the sun on the sidewalk, rather than baking in our ovens.  

           

Why wouldn’t somebody want to eat a cockroach?

            Before getting into the reasons for not eating cockroaches I’d like to state that all the reasons for not eating them are, for the most part, bullshit unless the individual carries some kind of natural aversion towards cockroaches, such as an allergy, but here I go. First and foremost I believe that the number one reason why people will not eat cockroaches is because they do not adhere to the socially established western standard of aesthetic pleasure that we westerners desire in our food. Perhaps some westerners feel that to eat them is uncivilized, something that tribal gatherers would do in say, the outback of Australia or the Amazon. Perhaps westerners feel that to eat bugs is to lower themselves to some kind of primitive level that they no longer need to adhere to because of the advanced society they live in, which is honestly a pretty damn asinine reason to not eat something, especially if that something is nutritious. Secondly, cockroaches are yucky. Not only are roaches bugs, but they’re pests too, crawling around garbage and in dirty places. Who would want to eat something that could have potentially crawled through who-knows-what in a sewer? Well if you clean cockroaches thoroughly this problem is solved, and the problem is solved even more so if you order the roaches from a cockroach farm. Thirdly, individuals may have a phobia of insects, particularly of cockroaches. Eating something you have a phobia of could prove troubling and is probably the most valid reason a person may have for not eating a roach if they don’t have an allergy. A pretty good example of this phobia comes from my own sister. When I asked what sort of insect she’d prefer to eat in a post-apocalyptic situation she answered and I quote, “Why can’t I just eat human flesh?” But perhaps rendering the cockroach unrecognizable in its cooked state could also help to lessen the disgust that the individual may have towards eating cockroaches, even aiding people who, like my sister, have phobias of the insects. I could see how grinding them up and frying them could work well in that regard. It’d be no different than pressed chicken in a chicken nugget. Maybe cockroach nuggets are the future of protein. 

Word Count: 1,972