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Add noodles, peppers -- and don't forget the meal worms

worms

April 19, 1997
Web posted at: 11:44 p.m. EDT (0344 GMT)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana (CNN) -- If the thought of meal worm chow mein makes your stomach turn, don't let it bug you.

It's just one of numerous attractions at Purdue University's annual Bug Bowl, which began Friday and ends Sunday.




Purdue University Bug Bowl
movie icon (2.8M/36 sec. large QuickTime movie)
(1.4M/36 sec. small QuickTime movie)


The Bowl celebrates one of nature's more unheralded creatures: the insect. More than 10,000 people showed up in West Lafayette, Indiana, drawn by enticements such as a cricket-spitting contest and an insect petting zoo.

mmmm

Also on the program: "Roach Hill Downs," the cockroach-racing event, and a parade of Volkswagen Beetles decorated as bugs.

What's the bug idea with all this, anyway?

"The Bug Bowl is the biggest outreach event in the School of Agriculture," says Kathy Heinsohn, a graduate student in Purdue's Entomology Department.

As for the bug eating, Heinsohn challenges audience members to a blind taste test of spice cakes: one with meal worms and one without.

There weren't many requests for recipes, but that wasn't the point.

"It's a great way for entomologists to interact with many different people," Heinsohn says.

 
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