Weird Cool Things: January 2010

The brainchild of Larry Peterman, 70, HOTLIX have expanded their line to include devilish delights from apple, lemon and orange flavoured Cricket Suckers to Amber InsectNside and spice-flavoured Larvets. “Larry has what he calls the worm ranch where he grows all of the insects for food products,” revealedKaty. “Our latest insect candy has been the chocolate flavoured scorpion which have proved to be very popular.”
Katy is quick to point out that everything at HOTLIX is edible. “I get a lot of questions about this but yes everything is edible – even the scorpions,” she said. “Many people think the scorpions are poisonous but when a scorpion dies it is not longer venomous. It is cooked before it is put into the candy so a lot of it is actually protein. It actually could be quite good for you, but we do cut off the stinger just to make sure there is no hint of poison.” “We feed the worms things like oatmeal, apple peel and banana peel so they are clean bugs filled with nutrients.”
And like the chocolatier from Roald Dahl’s hit children’s book, Larry is very protective of the secret process behind making insect candy. “The owner does not divulge exactly what the process is before they are cooked because over the years we have had a lot of people who have tried to copy the process. So far though our secrets have stayed safe and sound.”