Brood XIII: Coated in Chocolate?

By Laura Oppenheimer in Food on May 29, 2007 6:45PM

We know we have totally jumped on the cicada-covering bandwagon over the past few weeks. They are coming. They will be here soon. Where the F are they?

Well, we don't know where they are. But we do know that the Reader's David Hammond has been all over the place talking about why we should be eating cicadas instead of complaining about them. We have mixed — super mixed — feelings on the practice of eating cicadas. On one hand, we are all about eating local. On the other ... ew.

Hammond writes:

Before you do anything, though, you want to select the right bug. I try to snag the little guys coming right out of the ground. The youngest of any breed is usually the most tender (think veal, suckling pig, etc.), and the younger cicadas have a softer exoskeleton. Once the cicada hits a tree, it begins to transform into a larger, winged creature; to eat these, you have to clip the wings and they look a lot less appealing (though I realize to many this is a fine distinction).

Read the entire post for an introduction on how you might go about cooking your own cicada snack. Hammond recommends cicada tempura and "cicadas on a log." We thought maybe Hammond was an early adopter after we searched Epicurious and found nothing. Yet when we Googled "cicada recipe," we discovered 60,000 sites to visit for culinary cicada fun. Make sure to take a look at Cicada-Licious: Cooking and Enjoying Periodical Cicadas if you feel ambitious. We'll let you make the final call on whether this is the most delicious, or most disgusting, way to get through the impending invasion.