We dare you to eat a cicada
A few Ashland-area residents share their culinary adventures with periodical cicadas. Steve Shiplet of Loudonville sampled them during the 2016 emergence in Ashland County.
“I read about people eating them, so I thought what the heck?” Shiplet said.
“I fried some up and they were quite good.”
However, he noted, the males weren't particularly tasty.
“They're hollow,” Shiplet said. “The females – that's the good stuff.” Will he eat them again in 2033? “When they come around again, I'll be on it,” Shiplet said.
Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund of Ashland had a different take.
“When I was in late grade school at a church summer camp, two of the male counselors thought it would be funny to tell a small group of us that they had a surprise treat waiting when we got back from a nature walk,” she wrote.
“On each of the logs around the campfire site were dead cicadas and their exuviae. I knew those young men felt victorious in grossing out a bunch of preteen girls who thought their counselors cute, and I didn't want to let them win, so I did what any competitive, misguided young girl would do: I looked them in the eye and ate one of the insects. It didn't make them like me or think I was cool – just a disgusting, weird little kid.”
Diane Linn Miller of Mansfield tried but couldn't quite bring herself to eat a cicada when they emerged in 2016 in Richland County.
“She only ended up kissing it, in hopes of catching fish at Charles Mill,” her daughter, Debi Augustus, said.
When asked if it worked, Augustus replied, “She skunks everyone, getting the biggest and best crappies and bass.”
Miller added the uneaten cicada to her collection of natural memorabilia.