TASTING CICADAS.

TASTING CICADAS. I have a friend who is fond of eating raw potatoes. During the last cicada invasion, I read an article about cicadas which said that they taste like raw potatoes. I mentioned this to my friend, but he was not tempted. In preparation for the coming invasion, there have been a large number of articles on cooking cicadas, which is perhaps a tribute to the growth of foodie culture. This article by Van Smith on the City Paper Baltimore web site expresses dismay at “the media glut of cicada-eating stories”. Van Smith says that he had heard that cicadas taste like “a cross between asparagus and walnuts”, rather than raw potatoes. However, Smith goes on to prepare them in a variety of ways so that the recipe affects the flavor of the cicadas.