In late April or in early May, trillions of cicadas will emerge in various U.S. states. These periodical cicadas, from Brood XIX and Brood XIII, surface after 13 and 17 years, respectively, and will appear in unprecedented numbers. Virginia will experience this mostly on our southern border with North Carolina but Richmond will likely see a lot of cicadas.
This news is making me hungry.
Don’t knock it until you try it. That’s the first bit of delectable advice I enthusiastically give—preach, even—to any dining skeptic who questions cicadas as a culinary go-to celebrity insect.
I can tell you I didn’t. But I also have a wide and far reputation for not knocking many foods—or otherwise questionably digestible matter—before trying.
And try I did, during the great Brood X cicada orgy—because that’s what it was, folks—of 2021, documenting my experience and my new favorite dinner companion for both Richmond Magazine (ed. note: recipe below) and for the arguably somewhat wider eating audience of Bon Appétit.
For Bon Appétit, I enlisted local celebrity chefs to apply their, in at least one instance, James Beard celebrated skills to the preparation of a variety of recipes that substituted more common meat ingredients with cicadas. Kung Pao cicadas, classic Southern cicadas and grits, crispy cicada street tacos, and even a really dreadful cicada sausage all were sampled and (in all but the latter case) enjoyed by my volunteer tasters.
But I also cooked them myself.
So first off, let me say I’m not such a bad cook, if I do say so myself. Though I generally confine myself to the “food of my people”—Mediterranean staples. I make a pretty mean pasta sauce (gravy, if you’re a nerd about it). And spiedini. And my lentil soup is simple but perfect, thanks much.
I also do a risotto that’s pretty tasty—and which will feature prominently in just a few paragraphs.
Next, let me say it’s not such a far leap from the idea of eating cicadas. And indeed, in parts of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland, it evidently is a tradition. The “shrimp of the dirt” is what one online recipe guide I found back in 2021 called them. And it was this recipe guide that first inspired my exploration. And as insects, they are in fact, related to that seafood staple. Also let me say I’m a lazy bastard. And since the old adage “early bird gets the worm” also applies to cicadas, the only way I was able to accomplish my culinary mission was with the assistance of some early risers willing to get up at the crack of dawn to collect emerging cicadas.
Pro tip: You do not want to try to eat the ones you find buzzing around trees in their seemingly random kamikaze approach to flight. They must be captured while their carapace and wings remain soft. And you have to keep them that way. The best way to do this is with a gallon Ziploc baggie with a very damp paper towel in the bottom of it. Fill the baggie—or fill many baggies—and immediately take your harvest inside and place it in either the fridge (if you plan to eat soon) or freezer (if you want to maintain a supply for five to seven years waiting for the next brood to emerge).
Now it’s time to cook.
Almost…
First it’s time to pluck the wings off the little buggers. This is easy to do—much easier if they’ve been in the fridge for an hour or two to cool them off and slow them down.
My first test cook recipe was a simple one, a bunch of chopped mixed vegetables—porcini and portobello mushrooms, zucchini and yellow squash, an onion quartered, and some sliced-up bell pepper—and a handful or two of cicadas, seasoned with just salt, pepper, and olive oil and roasted on a grill in a tent of aluminum foil.
This, it turns out, is an excellent way to serve cicadas.
My first taste and I was, frankly, smitten.
The best description I have come up with is a nutty mixture of soft-shell crab and boiled peanuts, with a texture that’s much more soft-shell crab if soft-shell crabs were the size of boiled peanuts.
So good. Like soft-shell crabs, they fairly pop with flavor in your mouth, revealing all sorts of complex flavors. And, I’m here to report, none of those flavors are at all buggy or gross.
Reassured by this first experiment, I moved on to something more complicated. My risotto recipe.
For this, it’s literally making risotto—any old cookbook or online recipe will do—and then substitute the protein with cicadas—which have way more protein than whatever that other protein was, anyways.
Again, the results were a delight. Risotto, along with its creamy texture, already has a nice nutty flavor, which is perfectly suited to the addition of cicadas.
And that’s, as they say, about all there is to it.
In other words, don’t believe all the naysayers and gag emojis you might read or see badmouthing cicadas online. They’re good. And they’re worth the time—particularly if you’re an early riser, or if you know an early riser and are able to bribe them into getting past their squeamishness about bug collections to do your dirty work.
Speaking of dirty work — this may be the most essential advice I’ll give on cicada eating, and more specifically about cicada kitchen prep.
My biggest mistake was during prep, and wing removal, I was so wrapped up in my giddy enthusiasm for getting them on the grill that I failed to remember that I was tearing off dozens of tiny pairs of wings and leaving them in the sink trap where I also was rinsing the little buggers.
Turns out, cicada wings have a certain powerful mystique about them just as much as if they were attached to their owners still. Perhaps more. I received quite a lot of angry feedback from the rest of my family—none of whom agreed so much as to try any of my proffered bug-laden food apologies.
Sorry by Chris Dovi
Main photo by Sagar Vasnani
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Chris Dovi’s Cicada and Saffron Risotto
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
12 to 15 cicadas, wings plucked
1 medium onion, diced
4 stalks of celery, diced
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 1/2 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of Arborio rice
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese
4 to 5 strands of saffron
PREPERATION
In a medium pot, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and add the onions and celery. Sauté until soft. Add the Arborio rice. Coat in the olive oil and lightly toast the rice. Do not brown. Add chicken stock to cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and stir constantly until the liquid begins to absorb. Add more stock a little at a time and continue to stir and reduce the mixture until the rice becomes tender.
After half of the stock is used, add the saffron strands and continue stirring and adding more stock. When the rice is nearly done, add the cicadas. Contemplate life and death as the cicadas briefly crawl around in risotto before succumbing to their now slightly creamy fate.
Add any remaining liquid and continue stirring until the liquid is absorbed, and the cicadas appear parboiled.
Remove from the heat, and carefully stir in Parmesan cheese. Serve.
