Housefly larvae taste test

I tried eating two larvae, or maggots, from a housefly, I believe it was Musca domestica but am not certain. I have been unable to find a description of what they are like to eat anywhere in any book or on the net so decided to investigate. I could also find no detail on how they are prepared, or cooked, in regions where they are traditionally consumed by humans (apparently only rural China and Mexico).  

I boiled them for twenty minutes, considerably longer than the amount of time reportedly necessary to kill or neutralize the many pathogens Musca domestica can carry.

I was surprised how good they tasted, even excellent I would say, somewhere between pork and cheese, there is a report online they are called "cheese worms" in Mexico, where several indigenous groups raise and eat them (1). The skin is a bit problematic, slightly tough, requiring deliberate chewing. It would be worth testing if frying or putting them in a blender or other techniques eliminates this toughness. The consistency of the flesh is very soft, like cream or puss. Various cooking techniques such as making patties or fritters out of them to see if they are as satisfying as common meat seem worth investigating.

I think they deserve further investigation as possible meat substitutes or alternatives, however they do not contain vitamin B12 according to one analysis* (2).  

Despite the very deep, and partly justified, taboo against eating housefly maggots I think they may deserve attention as a simple way for anyone to produce meat, or animal protein, in a small area as well as as an apparently environmentally friendly way to produce meat (black soldier fly larvae reportedly reduce greenhouse gas emissions) (3), the opposite of common commercial meats. So a realistic view may be that beef is more repulsive than maggots, in the big picture.

A number of other fly larvae have been used as food and probably deserve investigation, such as the New Zealand native blowfly, Calliphora quadimaculata, once eaten by Maori, which is not reported to carry diseases and eats rotting plant matter, does not require rotting meat (4). 

* Tiger worms may be the easiest livestock for a small area that contains B12, not quite as simple as maggots, see my earlier post "Cooking tiger worms so not tough and rubbery"

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2006780035499549072/1585908280519215466?hl=en

References.

1)  Edible Insects of the World. Jun Mitsuhashi. 2017.

2) Vitamin B12 level in selected insects. 1984. Wakayama et al.

3) Black soldier fly larvae mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from domestic biodegradable waste by recycling carbon and nitrogen and reconstructing microbial communites. FangMing Xiang et al. 2024. 

4) Which New Zealand Insect? Andrew Crowe. 2002.