You can indeed eat cicadas
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- June 1, 2024
- 473
The sudden question from a foodie friend came as a surprise. When the cicadas hit in full swing this year, was I planning to eat them? Munching the winged buggers never occurred to me. Do people actually do that?
Yes, as it turns out, people do. I guess inflation is even worse than I thought.
I remember a few years ago when we had a comparatively minor cicada emergence. It seemed like there was the constant din of screeching from the trees for weeks. I actually stopped my car and popped the hood one day because I thought the roar was coming from my engine.
This year we are supposed to get an invasion of the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Thomas Jefferson was serving fancy new ice cream at the White House. It seems we in Ohio won’t see the worst of it. The biggest emergence should come to the west and south of the Buckeye State, but we will surely be inundated all the same.
You can indeed eat cicadas. In fact, they’re high in protein and low in cholesterol and pretty good for you, as long as you treat their preparation with respect. As you might expect, a bug that has lain dormant underground for a lot of years is likely to carry a lot of microscopic hangers-on.
It seems simple: Your yard is ankle deep in the screaming insects, so why not just go out and scoop up a couple of buckets full, bring them in and pop them in the air fryer? That’s actually a bad idea, and food-safety folks are saying you should buy your bugs from a reputable purveyor. The wild ones can make you pretty sick. They lay there absorbing lead from the ground and soaking up lawn chemicals. It’s best to beware and be careful.
No matter when you gather your winged snack, treat them as warily as you would raw chicken. Wash your hands and prep area carefully, don’t let the cicadas come in contact with other food, and wash up well afterward. Anything that has touched the bugs should be scrubbed and sanitized before continuing with any other prep work.
What you’ll need is a recipe or at least a cooking method. We are advised to think of them as akin to seafood and start from there. They can be breaded and deep fried, stir fried, tossed in butter or oil, or even worked into fancy cocktails.
Restaurants are getting into the game, planning to offer dishes of smoked bugs or salads with the added crunch of tiny legs.
Not everyone should try them. Health officials warn of mercury levels, which can be a problem for pregnant or lactating women or young children. They are apparently very rich, so if you’re prone to gout, you should avoid snacking on cicadas. Because they’re often compared to seafood, those with shellfish allergies are warned to avoid them completely. The FDA is quite serious about this, as cicadas carry the same types of allergens as shrimp and lobster. In fact, cicadas are sometimes referred to as “land shrimp.”
If you’re determined to try a cicada snack and are foolhardy enough to eat them from the yard, watch for your best opportunity. They’ll come out of the ground and climb a nearby tree, where they’ll shed their outer shell for a new one. It’s at this state, when they’re still soft, you want to nab them as they’ll be similar to soft-shelled crabs. Blanch them in boiling water for a minute and then pop them into a bag and the freezer to wait for final cooking.
From there you can consult one of the surprising number of cookbooks devoted to the subject or look online for a multitude of suggestions.
But count me out.