Cockchafer soup

A serving is about thirty beetles, and the beetle has been gone from most of Europe since the 1970s.

Chicken, Veal, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains chicken, cockchafers, which are beetles, veal.

Ingredients

500 g cockchafer beetles, legs and wings removed
60 g butter
1.5 litres chicken or veal broth
40 g plain flour
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon salt
black pepper
200 g veal liver, in thin slices, to serve
4 slices bread, in croutons
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

Method

A SERVING IS ABOUT THIRTY BEETLES, AND THE BEETLE HAS BEEN GONE FROM MOST OF EUROPE SINCE THE 1970S. Both facts are the article's: A SINGLE SERVING CONTAINS APPROXIMATELY 30 BEETLES, and EXCESSIVE PESTICIDE USAGE CAUSED THEIR POPULATIONS TO COLLAPSE BY THE 1970S, WITH COMPLETE EXTIRPATION IN MANY AREAS.
SO THIS IS A RECORD RATHER THAN AN INSTRUCTION, and the page says so plainly. The method below is real and sourced; the ingredient is not available, and in much of Europe the animal is simply absent. Nothing here is a suggestion that you go and find five hundred grams of beetles.
AND THE GERMAN RECIPES ALL DESCEND FROM ONE 1844 REPORT. A medical officer, Johann Joseph Schneider, wrote that in Fulda in Hesse the beetles were EATEN RAW, AS WELL AS SUGARED, CANDIED AND IN SOUP, and he put the flavour of the soup as SIMILAR TO CRAB SOUP. The article notes that ALL RECIPES FOR COCKCHAFER SOUP IN GERMAN ARE BASED ON SCHNEIDER'S 1844 VERSION.
WHICH IS WHY THE ARTICLE WILL NOT SAY HOW WIDESPREAD IT WAS. It records that the prevalence may have been exaggerated by newspapers for its shocking and sensational nature, LEADING TO IT BEING DESCRIBED AS A MYTH. One dish, one source, and a reputation larger than the evidence.
THE METHOD IS FRENCH AND FROM THE 1800S, which the article is careful to attribute. The legs and wings come off first -- they are chitin and inedible, and the article specifies their removal before anything else.
FRY THEM IN BUTTER BEFORE ANY LIQUID, which is the article's order. The comparison to crab is not accidental: a shelled animal browned in butter is where that flavour comes from.
THEN A CHICKEN OR VEAL BROTH, not water. The soup has almost no body of its own.
AND NOW IT FORKS, BOTH WAYS GIVEN. Strained, it is a clear bouillon. Unstrained, the beetles are CRUSHED and MIXED WITH EGG YOLK AND ROUX, which makes a thick bisque -- the same two choices a crab soup offers.
THE YOLKS GO IN OFF THE HEAT AND MUST NOT BOIL, as in any liaison. Tempered with a ladle of the hot soup first.
SERVED WITH VEAL LIVER OR DOVE BREAST AND CROUTONS, which is how the article ends -- slices of veal liver or dove breast and croutons. A garnish grander than the soup.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Germany · All recipes