If you've got cleaned, cooked seafood that smells like fish shit, you're at a shitty restaurant. My only takeaway from this is that we should really see if we can make terrestrial insects taste as delicious as we make aquatic insects taste.
Well the latter have more "meat" on them, whereas bugs are mostly just "shells" once they die. You aren't eating the shells of crustaceans, you're eating the innards
The bottom ones have delectable white meat inside. The top ones are all brown guts and crispy, musty shell. Nobody is shelling crickets for a worthwhile piece of meat inside like you do a shrimp or a lobster.
They look similar to bugs, sure. But let's not pretend it's the same thing.
Bottom line is that while there are things that we're hard-wired to reject, the rest is more about what social groups teach us at a young age. Also, we can overcome the hard-wired aspects to an extent, again through social reinforcement.
I live in a fishing town, and I used to love crab, until I was adult and it was my turn to prep them. The first time I turned a crab over and saw the bottom, where all its freaky little legs connect, I had a real "oh god this is either a bug or a space alien" moment. I can't stand crab anymore, just the thought of it makes me feel nauseated. Lobster too. Somehow shrimps are okay, though.
Stamets, do you want me to catch the 4 inch cockroach that I've been raising free-range in my apartment and send it to you to find out? It's on a non-GMO diet.
It's all about presentation. I can prep crickets in a way that almost anyone will eat them. Feed them oatmeal for a few days, then slow roast, powder in a blender, combine with sesame oil, salt, and spices, stuff it into wonton wrappers and steam. If nobody knows what's in them they disappear. But if I do fried crickets like the ones the Korean street vendors sell, very few non-Asians would touch them.
A lot of insects can be prepared using familiar presentations and the unsuspecting will devour them. I found ant cookies delicious - like a molasses cookie. And ground rolly-pollies (sowbug/pillbug/armadillium) could be used to make shrimp shumai and nobody would be the wiser.