[Vision2020] Roaches

Sunil Ramalingam sunilramalingam at hotmail.com
Fri Feb 20 10:17:46 PST 2009


My dad didn't particularly want to eat them, and my mom wouldn't have served them.  All the embarassmant and/or discomfort belonged to my mom, as my dad was happy to launch into detailed descriptions regarding the spread of pinworms, hookworms and roundworms, how the ingestion of fecal matter aided the process, how the scratching of certain areas broadcast eggs into the air...

Then there was the matter of how parasites are host-specific, and dog or cat worms can get 'lost' in a human host, turning up in unexpected places.  And our friend the tapeworm, which, well, has a yen to travel, and the location of the exit...

No embarassment there on his part, and I grew up thinking everybody talked like this at the table.  When my mom would try to shift the topic, he'd say, 'Viju, this is science!' as if it somehow sterilized the topic.  Didn't bother me, but our friends at the table often had strange looks on their faces.  I don't know if they stopped eating, I was too busy scarfing my mom's good food.

Sunil

To: Vision2020 at moscow.com
From: nielsen at uidaho.edu
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:09:59 -0800
Subject: [Vision2020] Roaches


I am in the process of dealing with an apparently educated man in the LA area who believes in unicorns because the Bible mentions them. Well, Sunil, the Good Book also tells us that we may eat some insects. So your father needn't feel embarrassed at the dinner table.
"All winged insects that go upon all fours are an abomination to you. Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours you may eat those which have legs above their feet, with which to leap on the earth. Of them you may eat: the locust according to its kind, the bald locust according to its kind, the cricket according to its kind, and the grasshopper according to its kind. But all other winged insects which have four feet are an abomination to you" (Leviticus 11:20-23 RSV).
Ralph
Ah, Blatella germanica. 
[My dad is primarily a medical entomologist, and secondarily a parasitologist, and to my mother's dismay dinner conversations often involve worms, mosquitoes, and other insects.  We used to go through his books to identify our pests.]
[snip]
Good times, good times.
Sunil
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