Gather eggs, shellfish, and insects

Collect the small easy proteins most people walk right past, and cook them well.

easy⏳ a daytradition — not yet hand-tested

Protein — the body-building part of food — is the hardest thing to get from plants alone. But you do not need to hunt for it. Eggs, shellfish, and insects sit still, need no chase, and together fed our ancestors long before spears did. The whole skill is knowing which ones to pick up and then cooking every single one properly.

One rule covers everything on this page: cook it thoroughly, always. These foods are safe and rich when hot all the way through, and risky raw.

You need

• A fire you can cook on — hot coals, a flat stone, or a pot of boiling water.
• A container — a basket or pot for carrying shellfish and insects.
• Clean water nearby — for rinsing shellfish and washing your hands.
• A stick or cloth for your hands — some of this food pinches, and some carries germs until it is cooked.

Steps

1. Find eggs in spring and early summer. Ground-nesting birds (ducks, gulls, quail) hide nests in grass near water.
   • Take at most one or two eggs from a nest with several, and only from places with many nests, so the birds recover.
   • Float test: put the egg in water. If it lies flat on the bottom, it is fresh. If it stands up or floats, it is old or has a chick growing — put it back.
   • Cook until the yellow yolk is firm: about 10 minutes in boiling water, or baked in the shell beside coals, turned once.
2. Gather shellfish at low tide. Mussels and limpets cling to rocks; clams and cockles hide a finger-length under wet sand where you see small breathing holes.
   • Take only from clean water — never near towns, drains, harbors, or water that smells bad, because shellfish concentrate whatever is in the water.
   • Take only ones that are alive: a mussel or clam should be shut, or shut itself when you tap it. Throw away any that stay open, are cracked, or smell wrong.
   • Boil or steam until the shells open wide, then two minutes more. Any that refuse to open, throw away.
3. Catch insects in the warm months. They are the most overlooked food on earth — weight for weight, richer in protein than beef.
   • Grasshoppers and crickets are easiest at dawn, when cold makes them slow. Sweep them off grass into a bag.
   • Grubs — fat white beetle larvae — live in rotten logs. Split the wood and collect them.
   • Pull off wings and the spiky legs (they scratch on the way down), then roast on a hot stone or skewer until crisp, or boil. Cooked, they taste nutty.
4. Follow the insect safety rules. Eat only dull-colored insects. Avoid anything brightly colored (red, orange, yellow — nature's warning paint), anything hairy or fuzzy, anything that smells strong, and all spiders, ticks, flies, and mosquitoes.
5. Cook everything until firm, opaque, or crisp. No pink, no jelly, no "just a quick raw one."

Watch out

• Raw or half-raw shellfish. They can carry germs that cause days of violent sickness. Fully open and steaming hot, plus two minutes — every time.
• Algal blooms ("red tides"). Sometimes the sea or a lake turns reddish, brownish, or scummy with tiny organisms whose poison collects in shellfish. Cooking does not destroy it. If the water is discolored, foamy, full of dead fish, or locals warn of a bloom, eat no shellfish at all.
• Raw snails and slugs. They can carry a brain-damaging parasite (rat lungworm). Never eat them raw, never on a dare; cook hard and long, and wash hands after touching them.
• Bright, hairy, or smelly insects. Warning colors and fuzz usually mean chemical defenses. Dull, plain, and plentiful is the menu.
• Insect allergies. If shrimp or other shellfish make you ill, insects may too — they are close cousins. Try one small cooked piece first and wait a few hours.
• Emptying a nest or a rock. Take a little from many spots, never everything from one, or next season there will be nothing.

How it works

Cooking heat breaks apart the germs and parasites that live in and on small animals, which is why the same mussel that could poison you raw is safe food fully steamed. Shellfish are filters — they strain the water for a living — so their flesh is a record of the water they sat in. Clean water in, clean food out; dirty water in, no cooking can fix it.