Worms

worms in the class of creatures known as annelids, exist in various forms, all or most of which are likely to be edible, although rarely or never eaten.

A shining exception is provided by the extraordinary marine worms of the Pacific described under palolo. Another marine worm which is eaten with some enthusiasm is the shipworm.

On land, earthworms are a prized item in the diet of many birds, and writers of the ‘guess-what? school’ have been able to produce some information about their being eaten by human beings in various parts of the world; but they are generally seen as being too repulsive. A children’s rhyme, portraying such worms as the very last thing anyone would normally wish to eat, is significant, and became the subject of an anonymously initiated correspondence from 1995 onwards in the journal PPC. It begins:

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,

Guess I’ll go and eat worms,

Long fat curly ones, short fat wriggly ones,

I bite their heads off,

I suck their bodies out,

I throw the skins away.

Nobody knows how well I thrive,

On worms three times a day.