Can one of the most destructive forces on the planet, human appetite, actually come to its rescue? That is the hope of London’s zero-waste restaurant Silo, which is now serving dishes made out of invasive species such as grey squirrels, Japanese knotweed and signal crayfish.
The idea, according to chef Douglas McMaster, is to “creatively popularise species that are detrimental to the environment”. In other words, make certain unwelcome species, which just happen to be delicious, so popular with gourmands that they are eaten out of those parts of the globe that they have invaded.
But even as it was immortalised in poetry, silphium grew more and more rare — when the last sprig was discovered around 54-68 CE, it was sent to Emperor Nero as a curiosity. More recent is the example of the passenger pigeon, once one of the commonest birds in North America. Far too many pigeon pot pies led to its extinction in 1914.
Yet, this new frontier of ethical eating must be approached with caution. The key thing is to strike a balance that keeps a species’ numbers in check in its new environment, while not affecting its population in its native habitat. As the history of prodigious human hunger shows, it is all too easy to eat a species completely out of extinction.
