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| Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Let's cut to the chase: How do cicadas taste?
Papery. A tad bitter.
Which I know, not from dry research, but direct personal experience. This is not my first rodeo, cicada-wise. Seventeen years ago, I was knocking cicadas off my spirea — the bugs covered my yard, "like the invading insect army in a horror movie." Inspired by a colleague, I raised a glove bearing one of the five-eyed beasties to my lips and popped it into my mouth.
Not at all unpleasant.
I also fried them up, for my boys, then 10 and 11.
This is the week trillions of cicadas are expected to emerge in Illinois — ground zero, cicada-wise, due to the overlap of the 13-year and 17-year cicada broods, an alignment not seen since the Jefferson administration.
"We're going to start to be able to see them," said David Horvath, a certified arborist with The Davey Tree Expert Company. "Right now, squirrels and raccoons and possums are running around, having a field day chowing down on cicadas."
Which is also why there are so many — they're flooding the zone.
"Their whole survival strategy is predator satiation," Horvath said. "They're going to overwhelm the predators; it's impossible for squirrels to consume them all."
I was concerned after reading Kade Heather's piece in the Sun-Times quoting the Morton Arboretum warning about the advisability of protecting young trees with netting. I have a lot of young trees — planted 15 at the end of 2022. Like anyone facing something they don't want to do, I sought a second opinion, from Northbrook forester Terry Cichocki.
"The tree species cicadas favor are oaks, maples and fruit trees," she said. "However, if you don’t do anything with the smaller trees, they will most likely have some damage, but not life-threatening. The cicadas prefer the mature trees. The damage would show up as broken branch tips, which could recover."
Horvath finds netting something of a 2024 fad.
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Yuk! So far nothing has been seen in this far Southwest suburb.
ReplyDeleteI have lived far south (Roseland, Pullman, Cal City, Blue Island) and have never seen a cicada in my life. We just don't seem to get them here. The closest was maybe '73 or '74. We were sitting on our porch with the cat who was playing with an exoskeleton. I read why they don't show up in some areas but don't remember the reason. Please let it be the same this year. I hate bugs, particularly in the house.
ReplyDeleteFor those seeking kosher insects, there are options. May I suggest locusts and grasshoppers. The key criteria being four wings that cover most of the body, four legs for walking, plus two upper legs with joints for leaping. Yes, check placement of knees before consuming.
ReplyDeleteOff topic but congrats on your journalism award, Mr. S. (p. 11 of the ST, today)
ReplyDeleteThe S-T is evidently beginning a new tradition of repeating articles featuring our genial host. I read an "incomplete version" of the article about the Lisagor awards on Page 25 in Sunday's edition, but Neil was included in both. "Best reporting on crime and justice by a large newsroom: Neil Steinberg, 'The community stood behind us.'" Congratulations, NS!
DeleteThanks. I was surprised to see the awards story repeated — I suppose the thinking is that Sunday isn't as widely read as Monday.
DeleteI get the annual swarm but I'm not sure if I will experience both cyclical groups this year. Either way, I feel no compulsion to ingest them. Not completely sure which year, '98 or '07, I played a round of golf at a Forest Preserve course at the peak of activity. There were oceans of carcasses around every tree, so discomforting that even I chose to violate the rule to "play it as it lays". Hitting the ball from a pile of the bugs would have showered me with insect parts, an experience I could live without. If I had any latent desire to eat cicadas, that day would have pushed it deeper into my being. Hope your trees survive, Neil.
ReplyDeleteI remember the last invasion-was working in Lake Forest-many more of them near the lake than out in Palatine. Once the shells were left the sidewalks were covered with them and crunched when you walked. Noisy too.
ReplyDeleteI can't pinpoint the exact period, but sometime in the last 70 years or so, there was a fad for eating bugs, particularly fried ants -- predictably, they tasted like burnt toast, which I happen to like. So, no problem. But I'm not so sure I would like cicadas, no matter how crunchy. We'll see -- if they do show up this year in the Western suburbs, I'll have a taste and let you know. If in doubt, I'll mix them in my kimchi or just add a little gochujang before imbibing.
ReplyDeletejohn
Late Fifties and early Sixties. Marshall Field's sold them.
DeleteChocolate-covered ants and grasshoppers.
Not sure if they were also fried. Don't think so.
I was a kid, in junior high and high school. I took a pass.
I think it became a thing after chocolate covered ants & grasshoppers were eaten in some movie in the late 50s.
DeleteSaw them emerging from the ground in large numbers one warm Sunday afternoon in 1956, the year I turned nine. Pretty creepy. A sight to remember, especially if you're just a kid. Everybody called them locusts, which they were not. Locusts are a kind of grasshopper. Never heard the word "cicada" until their next visit.
ReplyDeleteMy sister and cousins and I had to cross the hot sands of Touhy Beach if we wanted to swim. but I don't remember any cicadas floating in the lake. Countless numbers of them lay dying on the sand, buzzing feebly, in long rows. Like the wounded and dying Southern soldiers in "Gone With the Wind." My female cousin called it "Locust Town"--and she was not happy to see them.
Missed the 1973 invasion--I was in California. The 1990 visit was memorable, mainly for the noise and the mess. And I've survived a couple of invasions in Northeast Ohio. There was even a Cicada Fest here. People were chowing down on them, and actually claimed to like them. I had the chance to partake of them, after they were fried and covered with cheese, but I declined.
During my teens, the Marshall Field's store at Old Orchard still sold upscale gourmet foodstuffs, including jars of chocolate-covered ants and grasshoppers. They were a big fad in the late 50s and early 60s. Johnny Carson ate a couple of bugs on his show. My friends and I dared one another to buy a jar, and to eat from it. Nobody did.
Thanks, Grizz, for "1956." I was trying to work out the numbers, but thought I was younger when 95th Street in Beverly, where an Aunt lived, was inundated with "locusts." I don't remember any around 78th & Coles, where we lived a couple blocks from the Lake.. And there were certainly none in Niagara Falls, Ontario, where I spent a good chunk of the summer, getting oriented for high school with the Carmelites.
Deletejohn
Kudos for being brave enough to pop it in your mouth. I’d take a hard pass on raw, but fried up in some butter and a little garlic, they might be the tasty treat of the summer of ‘24! 😂
ReplyDeleteDuring the last go-round with the cicadas, we happened to visit the bucolic outdoor patio-in-the-woods at Hackney's on Harms for burgers and a couple beers, accompanied by a "brick" of french fried onions. The day we were there, near the peak of the activity, it was like having dinner inside a cicada factory.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds kinda gross, but was pretty fun. Loud, but fun. We let the onions suffice for the crunch factor and didn't supplement the meal with any of our little companions. The question is whether we'll seek a repeat of the experience this time, or not...