Posted on 02/22/2021 8:36:30 PM PST by Kartographer
The 17-year cicadas have started to emerge from their underground homes and, soon, Northeast Ohio will be crawling with literally billions of these bugs.
While snacking on a cicada may not be your idea of a delicious treat, they're high in protein, low-fat, low-carb, gluten-free and, over the course of the next several weeks, will be plentiful and fairly easy to forage. The clock is ticking, though.
Jenna Jadin, an entomologist who wrote "Cicada-Licious," the definitive cicada cookbook in 2004, says the bugs are best to eat shortly after they've hatched, before their exoskeletons have hardened. Early morning is the ideal time to catch them. Cicadas with hardened shells should be boiled before eating. Never forage cicadas that are already dead.
So, how do they taste? Bon Appetit says cicadas are similar to soft-shell crab, "but with subtle overtones of boiled peanuts, the kind only a backroads gas station can really do right."
Holy yum, right!!?
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
Ditto !
I have a few 17 year cicadas in a jar in the basement. Probably from around 1981 or a little later.
Can I cook them?
When I was in the second grade, about 1952, these scary creatures swarmed all over a house and its bushes that we were using for teaching due to student overflow.
We didn’t know that the little buggers were harmless but they got in the girls’ hair and we decided to protect the ladies from the invaders. I killed over 1,151 of them, basically just around the school house. Everything was covered in cicadas and you walked on them which made sounds like crunching peanut shells.
Today, I just watch them, one of nature’s stranger events and tell my grandchildren to leave them alone.
you eat ‘em. I just aint that hungry yet. Having watched people over several years pick boogers out of their nose and eat them. I guess I’m just a little bit picky. I’m NOT eating boogers, bugs, worms...
China needs food....
keep them in a bucket (with a lid) with an inch of water inside. Wet wings means they won’t fly off! Dry on a towel, pluck wings and legs, and set aside.
I am a huge peanut fan. I’m from California, and while touring the Virginia hinterland had the best peanuts of my life fresh from the farm. Having had the best, I’ll never again touch the floor sweepings that Planter sells.
Having established my peanut bona fides: I agree with you.. boiled peanuts are absolutely vile
When they say “cicadas” are they talking the whole thing, wings, legs and all?
No cicada broods scheduled for 2022 or 2023. Bumper crop of the 17 and 13-year varieties as they concide in 2024.
...I wonder what happens when 17 and 13-year cicadas intermingle and breed? Or can they?
No.
Note to the author: You first.
I’ve only experienced those twice...so loud at times to just walk outside you practically need ear plugs...almost unbearable how loud it was at times.
The biggest problem with cicadas is the bird crap that has to be cleaned up afterwards. I felt like I was watching a Hitchcock movie as thousands of birds descended on my property snacking away. It was eerie to watch.
No thank you.
If it doesn’t come in baloney, hotdog or Grandma’s pig sausage...I ain’t eatin’ it.
My Chihuahua prefers them tartar. 😉
What! That’s redneck caviar.
Hmmm.
I say, hmmm because I know you.
Are they like mud bugs? Crawdads?
5.56mm
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