Cicadas Set To Descend On East Coast Can Be Tasty Dishes When Well-Prepared

‘Shrimp and lobster eat garbage and they are the insects of the ocean,’ says cicada cook Jenna Jadin. ‘If we eat those without much afterthought, why not eat insects?’

By Sasha Goldstein / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

A Cook’s Guide

Cicada Pizza

The stick-legged, buzzing and bug-eyed insects are coming — but you can do your part to exterminate cicadas: eat ‘em!

Billions of Brood II cicadas are set to hatch this spring, bringing a once every 17 years plague to most of the East Coast. The deafening insects will mate and then die over the course of about six weeks, making an unmistakable racket the entire time.

But some foodies embrace the insect onslaught, using the high-protein, nutty flavored bugs in all sorts of dishes, from tacos and pizza to cookies and even a martini.

“It’s not that different from bottom dwelling sea creatures,” said Jenna Jadin, who wrote a cicada cookbook 9 years ago as a graduate student. “Shrimp and lobster eat garbage and they are the insects of the ocean. If we eat those without much afterthought, why not eat insects?”

In just a few weeks, you’ll have your chance. The noisy critters will emerge mid-May, said Gene Kritsky, a cicada expert who has written two books on the insects, who will use their four to six week adult lifespan to sing, mate and die. The key to harvesting the bugs for eating, he said, is when they are newly hatched, called tenerals, sometime in the early morning. They should be white and still soft, with the females and their distinctive pointy abdomens the most appetizing and nutritious because of their protein-filled eggs.

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