ATE HOT UGH SUNDAE
Oh, barf! It’s bugged-out ice cream
H EY! There’s a bug in my ice cream.
Actually, a lot of bugs. Mealworms, crickets and grasshoppers, to be exact.
Yes, insects and artisanal ice cream. Together at last.
No wonder they were giving it away. They should have been paying people to eat it.
I agreed on Friday to eat all of them — in all their multi-legged, exoskeletal, antennae-festooned glory — for a firsthand experience I won’t soon forget.
“It’s a sustainable protein for the future,” explains Laura O’Neill, cofounder of Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream, which is offering free frozen treats at random icecream truck locations around Manhattan — providing you agree to the bug topping.
So many choices. Chocolate, vegan matcha or espresso? Mealworms or roasted and unsalted crickets? Who could decide? In keeping with an entomological theme, I chose the honeycomb ice cream topped with a bug assortment.
I raised my first spoonful to my lips.
This one had a baked mealworm on it. Little prepares one for the disconcerting “pop” and bland pulpiness of biting down on one of those.
Next: the cricket, almost a thumb long in length.
Surprisingly, I enjoyed the crunch and taste. Here, I was not alone. “So good and crunchy!” agreed Hunter College student Lanna Leite, 28, who was also partaking. “I don’t have a sweet tooth, and I would choose crickets over chocolate chips any day.”
She added, “I want more bugs now, but I am afraid to ask.”
With pride and composure I was braced for my final, and largest, challenge, the mammoth grasshopper.
I’ve got this, I told myself — and then our eyes met, mine and the grasshopper’s, as I inserted the bug into my mouth.
Maybe it was guilt, or maybe, more likely, the rasping texture of wings against palate, but I nearly gagged.
“Two billion people around the world already eat bugs!” I was assured by Timo Blake, 26, of The Bronx, who was manning the Van Leeuwen truck Friday at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue.
“Insects are healthier than meat!” he promised.
Let 2 billion other people eat bugs.
Next time, I’m sticking to whipped cream, hot fudge and the kind of sprinkles that won’t give me nightmares.