Ep. 175 Eating periodical cicadas | #GoodGrowing

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. My tummy is full, and I am ready to talk about what just transpired here. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We got to fill our bellies with periodical cicadas. And you know I am not doing this by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Hello, Chris. I think we've reached the mountaintop.

We can retire. We can quit. It's the last podcast. Not really. Well, we'll we'll keep going. Just what else are we gonna do? Right? Exactly. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Yes. Yep. Crossed off the bucket list now. So Mhmm. Onto the next thing.

On to the next thing. That's right. That's right. Well, I as for I I know I've I I have intentionally and unintentionally eaten insects many times in my life. So now I can just say I'm kind of a larger than normal insect than I would normally be used to eating. Yeah. All on purpose. So

Yeah. For for everybody that thinks that's gross, you eat insects all the time. You just don't know it.

Yeah. Mhmm. There's there's thresholds for insects in our food. So yeah. So well, I think it is time to, introduce our special guests for today that helped make, such an event take place.

Hello. Thank you for having me.

We are happy to have you, and we are also joined by entomologist Kacie Athey, our extension entomologist here over in the Champaign Urbana campus area. Kacie, welcome to the show.

Thanks. Thanks for having me. This has been very fun.

This this it has been a delight. It has been really exciting getting these insects, just having the having the event happen and then trying what all the squirrels and birds and everything else have been eating and the dogs. And so, lots of animals have shifted their diet from, you know, whatever they might traditionally typically eat to consuming a large amounts of periodical cicadas, including ourselves. So, Penn, as our hunter gatherer in this instance, You're the one who went out and collected all these cicadas that we then took into the kitchen. Can you describe that process that you went through and why you have so many bags under your eyes right now and you're really tired?

Not really. Lots of lots of late nights and early mornings, burning both ends of the game. So, see, I would go out. I took a video of all this, and I may put it in here, and I narrated it. I haven't watched any of the videos to see how well it turned out.

So that was a lot of work, and thank you, Ken, for for gathering our our precious ingredient for this. In terms so, like, let's say somebody is having, maybe a pocket of periodical cicadas pop up in their backyard or nearby. Do you have any additional tips or advice to give in collecting these cicadas? Is there anything to watch out for?

Yeah. So you're gonna be they're they're emerging in the evening, typically. So you're gonna be going out late or in the evening, later at night, or early in the morning to get these with a few caveats. So if you live in an area where heavy metals are a concern in the soil, you probably wanna avoid collecting from there. I think there's some research that's been done that shows they can accumulate mercury in their bodies.

And shrimp indeed. Yeah. Watch out for those land lobsters too. You gotta be careful of those much larger insects. I'm sure they're gonna pop up eventually.

No. I think I was I yeah. I was definitely in from the get go. I like to try new things and be a part of, like, fun different things. So so I love my job. Every day is a little different in Extension, so this has been great. And I've had, you know, crickets in the past, so that was my gateway bug. But I haven't had very many, but, I have had fun with, like, cricket tasting events in the past. So I figured this wouldn't be much different, so I was excited to be a part of this adventure.

So we developed three separate recipes. And before we dive into those, though, Kristen, you know, I can't I can't imagine or maybe it is maybe it is just a lot like, yeah. We just substitute this ingredient out for a periodical cicada. But, like, what kind of research did you, go into, or or is there anything that was helpful in guiding how you develop these cicada recipes?

Yeah. I think, anytime you cook with a new food ingredient, you're kinda like, okay. This is different. How do I how do I use this? You know, what is the best way to cook this? Because we want it to taste good. Doesn't matter if it's, you know, a new kind of potato or an insect. It's all kind of the same, like, process our brain goes through. Fortunately, though, I had a cookbook. It's called the Eat a Bug Cookbook.

Awesome. So I guess let's let's jump into the different recipes we made. So you mentioned the pizza. So you kinda wanna take us through the process. And, like Chris mentioned, we cooked all this stuff yesterday, and we took film of that.

Sure. So, a really good, resource I was looking at, is from Georgia extension. And they mentioned, you know, wanting to blanch the cicadas first. So if you're not familiar with blanching, it's basically you are dipping your food into boiling water for a minute or two depending on the food. Cicadas are relatively small, so you they only really need to be in there for a minute.

And we we tried the blanched cicadas too. So right after you brought them out of the boiling water, I I know Casey, what did you think that those blanched cicadas tasted like? Because everybody has asked me, like, we need to know flavor, and we need to know texture. So straight out of the the blanching process, Casey, what flavor and texture were you getting?

Yeah. So I got, like, asparagus, but I think texture wise, more, like, more on the cooked very cooked side

Mhmm.

To texture wise, I would say. Like and maybe that's why I was getting asparagus so much because it really reminded me too of the texture of asparagus that you maybe cooked just just a little bit too long.

Ultra salt salt and asparagus.

It wasn't bad. It just you know, that's kinda what's also, there's a cicada in my office that is trying to sing. Just in case you hear that.

I think I hear it. Yeah.

Yeah. He's trying to let us know he's here and you know? So I may have to go on mute if he really gets going.

Well, I I think that that flavor lends well to that mushroom texture that you described, Kristen. The the flavor, that texture, that asparagusiness, yeah, that's that's definitely I picked up some of that too.

Yeah. For that, the the other toppings were what? Artichoke hearts.

Oh, yeah. We had artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes, mozzarella, Parmesan, red pepper flakes. So you can't go wrong with those ingredients, really.

And the cicadas fit right in. They did. Yeah.

They did.

So I think you're looking closely, you didn't really even notice. I mean, they were cicadas. They're just, like, chunks of sausage or chicken or whatever.

Yeah. And from far away, I really did think, oh, those just look like mushrooms.

Mhmm.

With eyes. Mushrooms with eyes.

I mean, you notice the eyes, there is that, but as far as far away. And

the other two recipes we did, one was tempura battered cicada with a spicy lime aioli. And this is one I found on a website called 24 grilling twenty four seven, I believe. And it just sounded really good. I like tempura, like shrimp, so I thought why not try tempura cicadas. And this was pretty easy to make.

The batter was very flavorful. Even the batter was colorful, and I I mean, it it fried to that golden color that batter does. But even like, just the batter, I'm like, I think I could just maybe eat that. But I think was there egg in there or something? It probably wouldn't be a good idea.

There was an egg, a can of Sprite, some flour. Oh, smoked paprika.

Mhmm.

Give it that nice color.

That's what gave it that color and that that smokiness to it. Oh my gosh. I I love smoked paprika. It is a favorite of mine.

Me too.

And then I started fun battering, so he he maybe had a little too much fun.

We'll see. If you're if you're doing this, the, sometimes they clump together and you end up with big chunks. We had need to work on my technique for that.

I like those big chunks, though.

Yeah. Or it's just one. You get it's it's 10 of them. It's one nacho. I'm gonna keep saying it because it's one nacho.

It's it's all

stuck together.

Turns into, like, a funnel cake, you know, cicada cake. And I think we do have the next Illinois state fair food if, we wanna save a couple gallons of cicadas for cooking in August. I would try it.

Mhmm. Yeah. They really should do that. Like, it seems like a good idea. People would like it.

Mhmm. Get a good growing cicada booth.

We'd run out we'd run out fast. I'm convinced people would be like, yes. I have

to try it. Yep. Mhmm.

If it's on a stick, anybody will eat it.

Well Yes. Mhmm. It's fried on a stick. It doesn't matter what's in there.

Doesn't matter. No.

And then our third recipe is, the cicada sundaes. And I thought this was gonna be, the favorite, but it was not. I think there were only a couple votes. I was super surprised that more people did not vote for this one. So this is, you know, your typical vanilla bean ice cream with chocolate sauce and strawberries.

I think

that worked a lot better.

We we turned it up higher in that first batch. You know, they got nice and and crisp, and and you're able to to blend those or grind those up and using something like a spice grinder, food processor. And Mhmm. I do or we did have another batch too we threw in the pan and we, like, toasted. And I recall getting aromas of, like, almond, like, very kind of nutty aroma off those, and I popped one in my mouth.

Yeah. You could do some kind of, like, you know how around the holidays, they have the roasted nuts?

Mhmm.

You could do something similar to that and maybe saute it with a little maple syrup or honey with some cinnamon and nutmeg. I think that'd be really good. I get kind of, like, a sesame seed flavor when I smell and eat the cicadas. So anything with, like, a teriyaki or, like, Asian flare to it, I think, would be good. And, also, you could use the ground cicadas for, like, a breading.

I also thought it was interesting because we didn't intend to ask people, like, the full just roasted it's a single cicada. We're not hiding it from you in any way. Several of the people said that was actually their favorite thing. It was just to Mhmm. That, which I thought was really interesting. Yeah. The ones we just threw in a pan as an afterthought, they were like, well, those are the ones that like the pan. So

I guess let's, we did we did have an audience too, at our event yesterday. And as Kristen said, they each sampled, each, course, and they voted on their favorite. The the tempura one was, I think, the the favorite. But what about what about us? I don't know. Ken, did you have a a favorite out of all of those, or did you just like the soggy asparagus y flavored blanched cicadas?

Slimy yet satisfying. Yes. They weren't they're not really slimy.

No.

Don't wanna turn anybody off. I mean, I liked I liked the pizza and the the battered. I think they were both I mean, I liked all of it. So if I had to pick one, I don't know. It would be the pizza or the the the battered ones. Those are both good.

Yeah. Casey, did you now did you already say you like the tempura ones?

Yeah. I I don't think I said that in this one, but, yes, those are the ones I liked the best. In fact, I kept I kinda kept eating them. The pizza was good too, but, yeah, I like the tempura ones the best. Yeah.

I myself am a sucker for a good pizza, and that was delicious. So I I was a vote for the cicada pizza. But, Kristen, you I mean, as the I don't you know, when we all cook at home, sometimes, we're very critical of our our own dishes. So maybe you're the best judge here. What what do you think is your favorite, cicada dish that was prepared?

Well, I think they all turned out pretty good. You know, I was a little nervous going into it because I had never tried any of these recipes, and that's you know, when I do a program, it's like, I always have to make sure they taste good first. And I couldn't do that because I didn't have any cicadas. I'm up in Northern Illinois, so I didn't have anything to work with. So I was like, oh my gosh.

And I think that that pizza, if you're not I mean, obviously, you're gonna be looking at it. But if you if you're not paying close attention, I think that pizza kinda masks the cicadas a lot more. So if, again, if you have somebody that's a little more hesitant, we put a little more cheese on there or put the cicadas cheese on top so it's melted and they can't see it.

And we left them whole, so you could always, you know, chop them up a little bit because the sun dried tomatoes and the artichoke hearts were chopped up. So you could always do the same thing with the cicadas. And they're not huge. They're only about, you know, an inch or so.

Yeah. And I think we were talking before the show, and our main comment we got from a lot of other people who saw pictures or saw the cicadas was, oh my gosh. They have heads and eyes, and you left those on. And so, yes, we did. It I mean, it all tastes the same. But if yeah. As Kristen said, if you want, take the head off so you don't have to look at them while you're eating.

Be a lot of work, though. Yes. Yeah. That's a lot

of work.

A lot of twisting. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So I I I I, again, had way too much fun doing this. This was a lot of fun. And and people are if you're curious, we will post these recipes in the show notes down below. So if you wanna try them, you print them off and try them at home.

10 out of 10 would recommend.

Yes. Oh, so with when it comes to eating insects, Kristen, is there any benefit, or can we just throw some chicken on there and it's the same thing? Like, is this protein that we're eating, like, is it good, bad, healthy fats? Like, what's what's inside of this bug that might be even more incentive to try it?

Yeah. So I think, when you think about edible insects as, you know, a potential protein source, there is a lot of other benefits too in addition to the protein. So it's got a good, you know, source of protein. It's got a good source of fat. It's got, you know, a variety of vitamins and minerals.

Saying I I know for for crickets, I would assume this to be the same. Are they more efficient at at growing, you know, protein production that compared to our all of our livestock and stuff too? So we'll we'll go to Casey for this one. So I think we've seen probably an increase in interest in in eating insects in The United States and get into why that is in a little bit. But, like, superior aqua cicadas, would it be practical for them to become a common ingredient in American cuisine?

Yeah. I I think theoretical cicadas, I think for the novelty of them, every place that a brood comes out, which, you know, we have a brood somewhere in The US most years, I can imagine that being something that pops up in those areas every time. But as far as being something that becomes part of the diet, given their long life cycle, it isn't something that we would suggest, oh, yeah. That's something that we could definitely make into a food source. They take seventeen years or thirteen years to become adults.

I think we should probably point out that outside of people of European descent, I would say is probably a good generalization. Western culture, we're kind of the outliers in that we don't eat insects. A lot of cultures around the world in Asia and in Africa and Central South America eat insects as part of their diet. Maybe not a staple, but they do consume them with some regularity.

Yeah. And I guess I always think about, like, on a larger scale, if you're thinking about incorporating those, like, even within the cultures that do it, it's still more of a small scale, kinda like our novelty with cicadas a little bit. I mean, not everywhere, but in a lot of places. As you said, it's not really a staple of the diet. And I think with the cricket powder, I think some of those the goal is to make those things more of a protein staple than, you know, things generally are for humans eating insects possibly.

That is it it's just yes. I I think it's the the big agricultural problem that we are all tackling right now, in that how do we convert sunlight into our calories? And, you know, right now, the current US model is, not much plant based, lots of meat based, you know, beef and poultry and pork, all that stuff. But with a growing global population, less and less farmland availability, how are we going to feed more people with less land, converting, again, that sunlight into calories. Insects are more efficient at that, in terms of where they stack in the food chain.

I think people, once they try it, though I mean, if once they get past that that fear factor of eating insects, like, I'm eating a bug. You know? Once you get past that, you're like, oh, it tastes like asparagus. Oh, it tastes like mint. Oh, it tastes like something else I like, then it's not as absurd to think.

We have taco Tuesday, meatless Monday, cicada Sunday, which is one of the one's one of the recipes that we used yesterday. So, yeah. I mean, it just you can slowly incorporate that stuff into our diet and, yeah, just try new things. We live in this pretty cool world. Let's try new things, and and it, yeah, it doesn't have to be just, you know, same cereal every single day. Throw some cicadas in that milk. See what happens.

And it's not fear factor. Fear factor is bad. No one eats things like they do on fear factor, and I'm I'm convinced that that set back the idea of anybody trying insect food a fair amount because without that, you aren't picturing, oh, I've got a live insect. I'm supposed nobody eats anything live. And so, yeah, fighting against that, making things that are yummy, that look yummy is is all for the better.

Yeah. That that cultural stigma

Mhmm.

Is is very strong.

It's very strong. And it existed before. You know, we have the ick factor with eating insects. But then when that show became a thing, it was like, no. No. This is something that horror movies are made of, so don't do it. You know? Like, that just made it way worse.

Mhmm.

Yeah.

Alright. Anything else? Otherwise, we'll move into the closing portion

of the show. Should we give our five stars, four stars? Give our star ratings for the Oh,

I yes. Yeah. Ken, let's let's talk about the, star ratings here for this meal. I mean, Michelin style. Right? Is that what we're looking at? No. I I what's this what's the I don't know. What is the scale? Is it four or five? Like, what's the max? I don't I don't know. I'm not that

Seven. 10?

Seven? I've

never been to 100.

A hundred. I

think I've been to one either.

I'll look it up.

4,000.

Four thousand gold Michelin stars.

1,000,000. I can throw out numbers randomly.

It's up to three.

Up to three. Okay.

Great Michelin stars.

Man, that's a rough scale. Whoo. That

was more than that.

So the quality is let's see what it says here. Okay. This is not what I thought it was going to be. Like, the little description was like, oh, this is exactly what I want, and then you click on it. It's like, wait. What is

Nope. It's like, oh,

it's Okay. So it's quality of the ingredients used. There's five criteria. There's quality of the ingredients, mastery of the flavor, and then, like, the rest is kind of blocked out, and I can't

Presentation. Or

Oh, here we go. Quality of the ingredients, mastery of the flavor, and cooking technique, the personality of the chef in the cuisine, harmony of flavors, and consistency between visits.

K. Well, we have one visit. Very consistent.

I have to try

this again. Years.

Every thirteen. Yeah. We can't give a rating for the next thirteen, twenty six, one, thirty nine years because they've all done it three times.

There you go.

One star signifies a very good restaurant. Two is excellent cooking that is worth the detour. Three is exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey. So I'm thinking maybe it should be three since

Yeah. We were working

on couple

of journeys.

This is thirteen years.

Think so.

Very special journey. Yes. Yes. I I think the the ingredients were top notch. Presentation was was outstanding. Personality of the chef really shone through. And, yeah, I three stars all the way. Also, I could probably eat that tempura dipping sauce on everything. Yeah. So that it was delicious.

Actually, there's the spirit animal right there.

I think that's what you're right there.

So thank you also for helping us out with this.

Oh, yeah. Wouldn't have missed it. And

and Ken, you did great too.

And Ken was here.

Yes. Thank you, Kristen and Casey. It was it was a lot of fun. We'll have to find some more insects to eat or

Yeah.

Anytime. To.

Four years do this again.

Absolutely. Yeah.

The next brood comes out. And here gonna cut in real quick. There's a few people we forgot to thank while we were recording the podcast. First, Matt Wiley and Jenna Brash from our state communications and marketing team. They took all of the video and photos of us cooking and eating the cicadas, so thank you to them.

Oh, we shall do this again next week. We will be sleeping off on our cicada slumber. Next week, we'll come back to you with a brand new show, so look forward to that. So listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, that is listening, or if you're watching us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.

You're good.

It's like I'm really I really will sniff.

Here we go.

Oh, it's video.

Just eat it. Ready? Alright. Yep. Let's do it. Mealworms too. Mhmm.

Up again.

I bet they are.

Oh, god.