By Rene Lynch, Los Angeles Times

Take a good long look at these hissing cockroaches. What words come to mind? Meaty? Juicy? Downright succulent?

That’s what chef Gene Rurka thinks. And he’d like you to give them a try.

Rurka is serving hissing cockroaches at the annual dinner held at the famed Explorers Club in New York City. The black-tie dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria will draw an eclectic mix of modern-day adventurers and their wealthy patrons. Members have walked on the surface of the moon, as well as explored the ocean’s deepest trenches, Rurka told the Times.

If you were to randomly throw a pebble across the dining room, there’s a good chance you’d hit someone who has scaled Mount Everest once, if not twice.

That kind of crowd puts a lot of pressure on a chef. But Rurka — who raises his own livestock outside Manhattan and is dedicated to finding fare that is both sustainably raised as well as suitably exotic — loves the challenge.

That night’s diners would enjoy python patties with applewood smoked bacon in addition to dishes that highlight stir-fried jellyfish, scorpions, alligator and kangaroo.

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