Eat bugs.
Insects were a useful source of calcium and protein. All the long-timers ate them. They ate worms too, and snails and snakes and rats. Snakes and rats were rare luxuries, but insects, worms and snails could be collected from the fields and roasted in a pan over an open fire. Most beetles could be fried in a dry pan and their bodies would give off enough fat to cook the worms and snails in. Otherwise, the latter had to be boiled, but they weren’t so palatable then. The easiest insects to catch were cockroaches, but they were the least tasty and were only to be found in the latrines, because there was no other source of food for them – the humans had already picked it clean.
Some gourmets only used cockroaches to drain their oil for cooking more delicious morsels, then they would
