Silkworms: an Environmentally Friendly Delicacy?
According to legend, 5,000 years ago Chinese Empress Xi Ling-Shi discovered silk when a silkworm cocoon fell into her hot cup of tea. She unraveled the strange cocoon and, wrapping the thread around her finger, soon realized what an exquisite cloth it would make. Thus the history of one of the world’s most coveted fabrics began.
If this is true, the silkworm that haplessly fell into the empress’ cup on that fateful day met a fate very similar to that of modern day silkworms. When they exit the cocoon after metamorphosis, silkmoths must bore a hole through the cocoon wall, which ruins the precious thread. Therefore, silk factories drop the cocoons in hot water before the moth can leave. This unravels the thread well, but it boils down to bad news for the silkworms.
Still, it’s the fate of almost every silkworm in the world today. Due to thousands of years of selective breeding, the silkworms we know today are no longer suited to survive in the wild. The entire species’ population exists only in silk factories and in the cardboard boxes of school children. So, except for the fortunate few 3rd-grade bookworms, virtually every silkworm will meet the cooking pot. That raises the question: what do you do with so many boiled silkworms?
