Did You Know People Eat Cicadas? Here are Some Recipes

The 17 years cicadas will be paying us a visit soon. Yes, they will be coming up from the ground this spring in many parts of Michigan after being silent since 2004. There are many different types of cicadas seen in Michigan every year, and this particular species of cicada only shows up every 17 years.

Fox47news.com says there are several groups of cicadas, known as broods, that come up from different areas of the United States, and also on different schedules. The brood that emerges in Michigan every 17 years are referred to as Brood X.

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Eating bugs is a delicacy in many parts of the world. As kids, our mom used to tell us of other counties eating chocolate covered ants and grasshoppers. We later found out she wasn't kidding.

Foodandwine.com says these particular cicadas coming to visit us this year are edible and a great source of protein. How exciting, something else I can have on Keto. YUM!

It's a delicacy that's rare," Isa Betancourt, an entomologist at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, told LancasterOnline. "They are arthropods, which means they have an exoskeleton. We regularly eat the arthropods of the sea and those are the shrimp, lobsters and crabs. And so cicadas are arthropods too.

Here is one recipe from Cleveland.com.

Chocolate Covered Cicadas

Source: "CICADA-LICIOUS: Cooking and Enjoying Periodical Cicadas"

Ingredients:
8 squares of good-quality dark, white, or milk chocolate
30 dry roasted cicadas

Directions:
1. Roast cicadas for 15 minutes at 225F.
2. Melt chocolate in a double-boiler over low heat. Dip insects in chocolate, place on wax paper and refrigerate until hardened.

Let me know how they turn out, and feel free to share your favorite cicada recipes.