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Insects from Denmark

Grasshopper garum (Nordic Food Lab)

Grasshopper garum is a modern fish-sauce-style seasoning made at the Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen. Grasshoppers are blended with water and salt, mixed with barley koji, sealed and held at 40 °C for at least 10 weeks, then filtered and pasteurised. The koji's enzymes break the insect protein down into a salty, umami-rich liquid.

Fully documentedInsects2.3 months – 2.4 months

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe general koji-garum recipe published by the Nordic Food Lab team, per 1000 g of raw material. A 2016 Nordic Food Lab post gives the same amounts for its 1000 g single-species batches, grasshopper among them.
Grasshoppers1000 g[mouritsen2017][nfl2016]
Water300 g[mouritsen2017]
Salt240 g[mouritsen2017]
Barley koji250 gCooked pearl barley overgrown with the lab's house Aspergillus oryzae culture[mouritsen2017]
Starterkoji (Aspergillus oryzae on pearl barley)

Total time across the recorded steps: 2.3 months – 2.4 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countAspergillus oryzae30 °C

What changes: White Aspergillus mould grows through the cooked barley

Step 1 of 5
Grow the barley koji
Time
30–36 h
Reported
Temperature
30 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Aspergillus oryzae
Moulds

Cooked pearl barley is inoculated with the house koji and kept warm until the mould has overgrown the grain; it is used while still white.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Grasshopper garum is a modern fish-sauce-style seasoning made at the Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen. Grasshoppers are blended with water and salt, mixed with barley koji, sealed and held at 40 °C for at least 10 weeks, then filtered and pasteurised. The koji's enzymes break the insect protein down into a salty, umami-rich liquid. Made in 5 steps over 2.3 months – 2.4 months. The longest step, seal and incubate warm, takes at least 2.3 months (Mouritsen O.G 2017) and runs at 40 °C (Mouritsen O.G 2017). Salt is at least 10 % (Mouritsen O.G 2017). Aspergillus oryzae does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 2.3 monthsReported[mouritsen2017]Seal and incubate warm
Temperature40 °CReported[mouritsen2017]Seal and incubate warm
Saltat least 10 %Reported[mouritsen2017]Blend the grasshoppers with water and salt
AciditypH 4.9Measured[mouritsen2017]Filter, bottle and pasteurise

What makes this one different

Grasshopper garum is a sauce from the same family as Roman garum, but it replaces fish with insects and uses barley koji at 40 °C, a method the Nordic Food Lab adapted from soy sauce making.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Extra virgin grasshopper garumThe first fraction, passed through filter paper by gravity alone.
  • Wax-moth larva garumThe same koji recipe made with wax-moth larvae (Galleria mellonella).

Safety

The recipe keeps salt above 10 % in the liquid, holds the mash under cling film to keep out oxygen, and pasteurises the bottled sauce at 72 °C for 15 s. FAO says edible insects can cause allergic reactions, and that people with a seafood allergy could react to them. It says it is doubtful that processing such as boiling destroys the allergens. It also says that for the great majority of people eating insects poses no significant allergy risk, especially with no history of insect or arthropod allergy. In one study, koji and tempeh-type fermentation of grasshopper (not a garum) lowered allergen-associated proteins such as tropomyosin by day 15. Not every form fell, and the study measured proteins, not allergic reactions. Treat the sauce as an insect allergen.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

In late June 2012 the Nordic Food Lab handed out a garum fermented from grasshoppers and wax moth larvae instead of fish at the MAD 2 symposium in Copenhagen, and posted its recipe on 2 July 2012. In the summer of 2013 it began separating the fermented mix into an "extra virgin" first pressing and a second press. In 2015 it made single-species garums from grasshopper, cricket, wax moth larvae, bee larvae and mealworm, after trials the summer before.

  1. [mouritsen2017] Mouritsen O.G., Duelund L., Calleja G., Frøst M.B. 2017, Flavour of fermented fish, insect, game, and pea sauces, garum revisited, International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science 9:16-28, doi:10.1016/j.ijgfs.2017.05.002 (University of Copenhagen repository copy, via web.archive.org)paper
  2. [nfl2012] Evans J. 2012, MAD 2, finding the deliciousness of insects (post of 2 July 2012 with the grasshopper garum recipe), Nordic Food Labweb
  3. [nfl2016] Evans J. 2016, Fractioning insect garums, Nordic Food Lab Archive (post of 18 March 2016)web
  4. [okehie2026] Okehie I.D., Riaz M.N., Pillai S., Ovissipour R. 2026, Enhanced nutritional quality, digestibility, and flavor of grasshopper through solid state fermentation, Scientific Reports 16:10918 (koji and tempeh solid-state fermentation, not a garum)paper
  5. [fao-insects] FAO 2013, Edible insects, future prospects for food and feed security, section 10.3 Allergiesgov