Feasting on worms is more than dig and dine

So you want to eat fried worms, eh?

Despite the gross-out factor, it wouldn’t be the most outlandish thing you could ingest. A good source of protein, worms are a delicacy in many parts of the world.

In “How to Eat Fried Worms,” the movie which opened Friday and is based on the classic children’s book, Billy, an 11-year-old newcomer, accepts a schoolyard bully’s disgusting dare to consume worms.

But perhaps Billy wouldn’t have been so intimidated had he known that worms are served like bar nuts in Thailand, as sun-dried snacks in southern Africa, and closer to home, on a “Bug Bistro” menu at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History in Halifax, Canada.

Cooked, they have been compared to potato chips and beef jerky.

You might have eaten clams or escargot (forget the fancy French term, they’re snails), tasted sweetbreads (the thymus gland of lamb, pork or veal) or cooked your own lobster. Why not take the leap into bugs?

“You just don’t put a worm in your mouth. It doesn’t look good, insects don’t look good,” says Gene Rurka, the exotic-food chairman of the famed Explorers Club in New York. “Usually what I try to do is at least give the mind a comfort level.”

That’s the thinking behind his trademarked Wormzel, a worm pretzel that he said made the idea of eating a nightcrawler more palatable to guests at the last Explorers Club dinner, where many so-called exotic foods are served.

But take note: While slurping a few worms on a dare won’t kill you, Rurka says it’s a lot more complicated than just dropping the critters into a vat of oil.

Earthworms (lumbricus terrestris) need to be carefully selected, cleaned and prepped before you start cooking. Otherwise you will have a gritty, chewy string that’s most likely spent its lifetime dining on a whole assortment of harmful chemicals put in the soil by humans.

You could go into your backyard and dig up a few worms, or you could buy them by the dozen at a bait and tackle shop. Rurka doesn’t think this is a good idea, though. Consider how most homeowners treat their lawns: with pesticides, weed killers and fast-grow products. If you live at the bottom of a hill, rain and runoff will deposit the chemicals of every home above yours into your yard.

Next you need to clean them. Worms need grit in their gizzards to digest food. If you bit into one that hasn’t been purged, it would leave the sensation you get when biting into a clam that wasn’t washed properly. To achieve a smooth taste, feed them a meal (i.e., oatmeal) or organic material for a few days.

See, this is not just a dig-and-dine process.

Finally, you have to prep them for cooking. This means killing them humanely. Rurka says freezing or soaking in alcohol works best. If you’re set on frying the worms, you’ll need to dehydrate them otherwise they’ll burst – worms are 90 percent water. Salt draws out the water, heating them in the oven will do the trick, too, but beware: If you cook them too long they will shrink to the width of a hair. (It’s trial and error as to temperature and time.)

Yes, you could fry them, but you can also candy them like yams, marinate them in a vinaigrette, roll them into a puff pastry, and saute, bake, grill or roast them. Anything goes.

Whatever you do, don’t be greedy. The earthworm is an essential friend in the grand ecosystem.

“If everybody took a couple of worms a day there’d be no more worms, and worms are beneficial,” Rurka says. “They aerate the soil, they allow water to penetrate, they speed up the decomposition process. That’s why worms are critical for the environment.”

Bon appetit.