I decided to cook insects. Many in the world do, and Westerners have dabbled in entomophagy for ages. If we won’t be able to keep eating meat the way we do – ethically, environmentally, biologically – then insects might have to do; plus they provide three times the protein at a fraction of the cost.

Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason were happy to sell me a few tiny extortionate ants (Conran hadn’t started their ‘Mapame worm season’ yet), but I needed more. The insect chef I spoke to recommended some insect farms – but they only sold by the truckload. Finally I found some locusts, in a pet shop down the Cally Road – the same one that used to have a live-maggot vending machine outside for the fisherman on the canal.

The only problem was that they were still alive.

I had never killed my dinner before. They sat around on my desk all afternoon, thumping around in their little tubs. I decided to freeze them, slightly fearful they’d burst to life when i removed them. But they seemed dead. It was only when i tossed their beautiful luminous bodies into the sizzling pan that they began to jump about in a crazy panic, flitting and buzzing, fitfully awoken, desperately trying to jump out of the fire.

I was always a fussy eater, refusing all veg til way down the line. My sister was once OK eating ladybirds and insects but I can’t even take a runny boiled egg. So those locusts needed some masking. I tossed them in honey and orange juice and laid them to rest on a pepper and date mix that kept popping up, locust-like, on the web. & in all honesty, I think they were pretty good.

Bring on the Swarmgasbords.

There was a bounty of brilliance in the thought and craft at our “Future of Food” discussion dinner at The Hub Westminster. Home-grown food featured prominently, as (very unexpectedly) did chocolate – whether raw beans, 85% Fairtrade Kichwan Kallari, artisanal pasta or even cauliflower bake – its florets lightly dusted with it. Many thanks to our wonderful guests – and to the Hub, whose beautiful new space in New Zealand House – just opposite the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square – awaits you.

Pics here, vid of locust life here, locust death here.

This week

This Saturday, come join us in Shoreditch to celebrate Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos. Sinead and Alex are hosting a south American dinner for 12 at 8pm followed by a trip to London Fields to a Dia De Los Muertos party at The New Empowering Church from midnight.

For dinner we are slap bang in the middle of South American passing through the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. Argentine cuisine is famous for its beef with grilled meat from the asado (BBQ) being popular and accompained by Chimichurri, a sauce of herbs, garlic and vinegar,  Empanadas — small pastries of meat, cheese, sweet corn and a hundred other varieties — are a common sight for parties. A sweet paste, dulce de leche is another national obsession, used to fill cakes and pancakes, spread over toasted bread for breakfast or as an ice cream flavour.

We also visit Brazil (where we will be for a few weeks) so if feijoada, a simmered bean-and-meat dish, moqueca capixaba, consisting of slow-cooked fish, tomato, onion and garlic topped with cilantro, or chouriço, a mildly spicy sausage, take your fancy then go Brazilian, Brazil is also known for cachaça, a popular native liquor used in the caipirinha cocktail.

We also pass through smaller places such as the ex-British colony of Barbados, and smaller Southern American countries such as Guyana, Paraguay, Uruguay and Suriname. We have a nod to European colonialism while passing through the British owned Falkland Islands and the French overseas territory of French Guiana.

Come join us on Saturday for dinner and death : )