[Pink.]

When the health department in Columbia, Mo., nixed a new flavor of ice cream laced with cicadas in early June from a local shop's menu, it wasn't because it's illegal to serve the winged insects to the public. "It's not really regulated," says Gerald Worley, the department's manager of environmental health, who adds, "I don't claim to be an expert on this." Nonetheless, Worley says he discouraged Sparky's Homemade Ice Cream proprietor Scott Southwick from selling the surprisingly popular flavor because Southwick "didn't really have a plan for how he would cook them," and Worley worried that the critters, which were collected from the ground, might make people sick. "We suggested that it would not be a good idea," says Worley. The first batch, in which the boiled bugs were covered with brown sugar and milk chocolate, then mixed in with an ice cream base of brown sugar and butter, had promptly sold out after the shop announced the flavor on its Facebook page.

YOU CAN HAVE IT! SWEETENED ANIMAL PROTEIN OTHER THAN DAIRY IS SHIT.

****
As it turns out, cicadas have a long culinary history, and the emergence this spring of the noisy, 13-year-cyclical cricket-like insect in the Southeast and southern Midwest LONG CYCLE FOR AN INSECT has brought a resurgence in cicada cuisine. Ashlee Horne of Nashville likes her cicadas sautéed in butter and garlic. Jenna Jadin of Washington, D.C., bakes them into banana bread, chocolate-chip cookies and rhubarb pie. Others like them dipped in chocolate for a sweet, crunchy snack. The inch-long bugs are widely consumed around the world, especially in East Asia, and are considered a delicacy among the Iroquois people in the U.S. Even the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle gobbled them up: in his 4th century B.C. text Historia Animalium, he noted that the young nymphs are tastier than mature bugs, which have a harder exoskeleton, and that among adults, the egg-laden females are best.

GENERAL BUG/INSECT CUISINE

A Chef and his Delicacy
David George Gordon, a biologist and writer from Seattle, is the author of the Eat-a-Bug Cookbook, a collection of recipes for grasshoppers, ants, water bugs, spiders and more. Gordon and David Gracer, another chef specializing in insect cuisine, recently held a cook-off at a food fair in Richmond, Virginia.


The Right Ingredients
In many countries around the world, insects are a regular part of a well-balanced diet


Preparation
Chef Gracer slices water bugs at the Richmond food fair. These six-legged creatures have four times as much iron as beef.
THESE ARE NOT...REPEAT NOT CRAWFISH!!


Scorpion Scaloppine
One of Chef Gordon's signature dishes, the recipe for these arachnids sautéed in batter comes with special scorpion handling tips.


Blue Ribbon Dish
Chef Gracer won the cook off with a menu that included a spring salad with waxworms, Queen Atta ants and stinkbugs.


The Yuck Factor
Guests at the food festival sample the chefs' creations. For bug cuisine to catch on, says Gordon, "We need to get from 'Not bad' to 'Actually good.'"


Degustation
A potential diner samples the aroma of a Thai giant water bug. These insects possess a salty, tangy taste.

Orzo and Crickets
Chef Gordon prepares Orthopteran Orzo, one of his signature dishes. At the Richmond cook-off, he served it with tarantula tempura.

[Pink.]

Food of the Future?
A side dish features crickets and corn. With the global livestock sector responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, insects offer an easily sustainable option for food. They require little room and few resources to grow, and yet they contain great amounts of protein and other nutrients

[Pink.]

DONT GET HOOKED ON CICADAS
But bug eaters need to act fast. Once they emerge, the 13-year cicadas live for five weeks at most, according to Murphree. They can be found mostly on oak, hickory, apple and pear trees, where they lay their eggs. By the end of July, most of these so-called Brood XIX cicadas, also known as the Great Southern Brood, will have gone back underground. While the red-eyed bugs have already quieted down in Kentucky and Tennessee, the males' distinctive mating song is still piercingly loud in parts of Missouri and southern Illinois.

[Faline]

I'd actually give this a go lol. Doesn't sound that bad and it states water bugs have four times as much iron as beef!

[concerned1]

I'll Sooooo paaaaaaasssssssss!!!!!

[Sharon]

I think this is a viable idea, why not? Low fat, nutricious, readily availeable and cheap. I'd be up for it

[bdjackass318]

i've eaten grasshoppers, crickets, ants and eartworms. i also have eaten slugs,and grubs. i gotta say they were pretty damn good

[Tefik]

Insects outnumber us by the 10,000's. They are pure protein. Raw for survivalists and stir-fried for squeamish noob's. I've tried several dishes and they are very good. Half of them don't even resemble insects, later when they tell you what it's made of you go into nervous denial and then acceptance. It's all good, everywhere!

[khantko]

meal worms look pretty good, reminds me of shrimp

[Lobsterbird]

I've tried grasshopper before. Why not, what the hell.