Tastes like … cicada
Some people wanted more than one bug atop their cold custard.
Jenny Bardwell and Sandy Liebhold of Rising Creek Bakery serve up frozen butterscotch custard with cicadas on top.
An educational handout identifies the differences among the four species found in the Brood V magicicada population.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Roasted cicadas taste like candy. A take on texture is a different matter, but roll a bug in sugar and it’s undeniably sweet.
Chefs from Rising Creek Bakery in Mt. Morris plopped the bugs atop creamy butterscotch ice cream custard for the dozens of visitors to try May 29 at West Virginia University’s Aboretum as part of “Magicicada Festival.” The bakery brought chocolate chip cookies decorated with the sugar-roasted arthropods, but the sunny, 89-degree weather had most scooping up the buggy custard.
The cool, free treats were in addition to the crafts and children’s educational activities underneath the canopy of trees just across from the WVU Coliseum. Despite advertised plans for other chefs, the bakery turned up as sole providers of cicada confections.
And it left a conundrum for this proposed “O-R Challenge.” The self-imposed dare for this reporter was to taste as many versions of cooked cicadas as possible. That left no choice but to eat a lot of the cicadas on hand. That number, after a few crunchy bites, turned out to be five.
“They taste like chocolate!” exclaimed brothers Anthony and John DiBartolomeo, of Morgantown, who were among dozens of enthusiastic kids who eagerly scooped up the fast-melting custard. Others were seen with folded arms and pouty faces as adventurous parents pleaded with them to at least try the unusual, once-every-17-years dessert.
“Look, there’s the custard you can eat after. Even if you don’t like it, you can have this yummy stuff,” said one parent.
For the reporter and others tasting the bugs by themselves – and not alongside a hearty scoop of custard or melted chocolate chip batter – the taste was buttery, nutty and, well … buggy.
It’s a shame most other desserts’ flavors don’t linger as long as the slightly grassy, muddy sweetness of the cicada shell did on the tongue. And that’s not counting if you get a leg stuck in your throat. The lingering taste could best be described as a cross between earthy, sweet pistachio and salty peanuts.
Not much substance was left of the adult-stage cicadas that were roasted. Their bodies shriveled, and the orange, darkened husks looked similar to the millions of shells left on trees after eclosing from their hardened, nymphal shrouds. The crunch was audible, but not as loud as the 90-decibel drone of the cicada mating call.
If chefs are still looking to grab up cicadas to cook for themselves, entomologists and experts advise baking, and not sautéing, them, and grabbing up white nymphs on trees before they morph into adults. But hurry: This is one summer treat not available in the region again until 2033.