17 Year Cicadas.
I remember back in the 50s in Virginia, my father told us to collect the emerging cicadas from the tree trunks before they could harden and fly away. So, we took pails half filled with ice and collected hundreds of them. The point was to cook them and eat them.
My father said they were good, but it took me a while to get the courage to eat my first one. We pulled the legs and wings off them steamed them like a seafood.
They actually did taste good, a lot like soft shell crabs, but with more of a shrimp flavor. We also dipped them in horseradish and ketchup seafood sauce.
If you do an image search for “Cicadafest”, you’ll see pics of the big bugs used as a pizza topping. Growing up in south Louisiana, those critters were part of the annual Spring and Summer environment. Never really seemed like a lip-smacking treat to me (but the local population of blue jays ate them with gusto).