so i bought flaked barley, through them in my pantry like a rookie.. lifted the pack up a week or so later and there were little flies.. im talking around the size of the really small fruit flies with wings. they dont look like they fly around at all though. i i cleaned my pantry out, threw away all my open food.. wiped down everything and they came back.... i need some help with this one before my fiance finally ends up killing me.
Rub white vinegar diluted in a 5-10 parts water to 1 part vinegar solution all over the surfaces. That'll dissuade any bugs from returning and actually is a great home cleaner in general. Granted, it'll smell of vinegar for a bit, but its worth it. Your fiance shouldn't kill you for your mistake. Sounds like weevils or black "flea" beetles to me.. we used to get them inside cereal boxes when we were kids. Sometimes weevils can be big, twice the length of houseflies, but I don't think they have wings.. but they'll leave eggs in your food even if you only see a few and want to pick them out (destroy the evidence). It's a good thing you tossed everything, especially grain related.
As for brewing, I know a story about bugs and maple syrup my mom told me from when she was a lass in Alaska. Her family bought from a certain maple syrup company, old school stuff, for years, until the company switched owners and the flavor wasn't the same anymore. The company realized their sales were going down, and as they hadn't changed the recipe at all, decided to investigate the problem. Well, the only thing they could find different was that when they bought the old company, they went in and cleaned up the plant, making it insect-proof since the old company was so old school they didn't bother to do it themselves. The result? It was the bugs. The simple fact that the new company's same recipe syrup didn't have bugs getting into their sap tanks and dying, being processed along with the sap into syrup, was the key to the flavour change. Cool, eh?
I sound like a Canadian but I'm only half. I grew up in California on the central coast, halfway between SF and LA in a little town called Morro Bay. About 40 miles south of Morro Bay, as the crow flies, is another little waterfront tourist town called Pismo Beach. There you'll find an interesting cafe/candy shoppe, what serves food laced with insects! It's been on the Travel Channel and also the Food Network, because most (if not all?) of its food is quite strange to most people. I've personally had milk chocolate-covered roast mealworms, tequila pops with mealworms and scorpions minus the venom sacs, and dehydrated grasshoppers. They're pretty good. Aside from that particular place, my brother and I were into eating earthworm burgers for a time, and the native snails in that area (the invasive ones, so good on me for eating them!) are actually the official escargot mollusc. There's techniques for preparing/eating them, else you can get sick, so do your research! Bugs in general have about 4 times the protein of steak, and often have complex amino acids. They're very very good for you, and they're usually rich and sweet all to themselves, some especially when they're raw and alive. Man, you wouldn't believe it till you tried it. Don't knock it, either. You can grow your own high-protein burgers in your little sideyard if you like, but you probably won't be able to raise a cow (if you could even afford it). Easy as planting a garden, and great for keeping one healthy, too.
My point? I'd use the dang stuff anyway! But that's just me..
Cheers!
~BV
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