If You Enjoy Eating Lobster You Better Be Devouring Truckloads Of Cicadas This Summer
(NYT) - For Bun Lai, cicadas are mesmerizing to eat, their sweet, bitter flavor reminiscent of walnuts, chestnuts and adzuki beans, and their gently crunchy exterior giving way to creaminess, like a soft shell crab.
Every technique for cooking them “brings out different tones and shades,” he said.
Mr. Lai, 47, is the chef of Miya’s Sushi, his family’s sustainable sushi restaurant in New Haven, Conn. This summer, he is turning his attention to insects.
As Brood X cicadas emerge by the billions in coming months, he will host a series of cicada-centric dinners at his farm in nearby Woodbridge, where he recently shifted part of the restaurant’s operations so he could do outdoor events and cook closer to nature.
Besides being delicious, cicadas align with his mission to encourage diners to eat in an environmentally conscious way. They’re also a part of Mr. Lai’s heritage.
I've lived in the northeast my entire life. People look at me like I've grown three heads when I tell them I don't eat lobster. "But, you're from Boston? Aren't you legally obligated to eat seafood for every single meal?" No, because I'm not a hypocrite. And that's ultimately what you people are at the end of the day if you're not going to spend this entire summer munching down on some cicadas.
The only difference between the common lobster and a noble cockroach is that cockroaches aren't cowards who hide in the ocean. Roaches come straight to your house and consistently bring the war behind enemy lines while lobsters and crabs hide in the seas. If you'll eat a goddamn oyster or some other variant of snot rock you better buy you a fucking net because there's good eats ready to hit your backyard all summer long. And take it from Bun Lai, someone who has built their entire livelihood around curating seafood, there is no difference here. Are you from Maryland and toss a whole crab on a bun like that's a sane thing for a person to do? Well, you're in for an airborne, chestnut surprise thanks to these delicious and nutritious 'cadas.
My take on lobster has been the same for 20+ years now: no one likes lobster, they like butter. They're too afraid to just toss some butter in the microwave and drink it out of fear of being shamed by the societal elites. Big Seafood is up there with the de Beers in terms of who is better at inflating prices of commodities. Lobster, those Alaskan crabs that look like spiders drawn from memory of someone who took a lot of acid, shrimp, crawfish, and of these sea-dwelling fucks with a shell, should all get a summer off. Give the oceans a break for a year and let's take care of these billions of Biblical cicadas one cookout at a time.