You read that headline correctly: Cicada ice cream. Every 17 years the Brood X cicadas emerges to life and take over many places along the East Coast out to Ohio and Missouri for about six weeks. Their noise is deafening as they mate and bury their eggs in trees. You either complain about them for their entire short lives, or you find a way to have some fun with them.
A pizzeria in Dayton, Ohio made international news when they sold cicadas as toppings on their pizzas--eyes and all.
Planet Princeton, a local news source, is selling cicada t-shirts. Hoarders, hang onto yours for 2038 when they emerge again. You know who you are!
Friends bought chocolate-covered cicadas from a Maryland chocolate shop, making international news for their creativity. Click on the link to see the images.
The eating club at Princeton High School made dishes out of cicadas. The club was created to eat insects in a variety of ways, so this was a natural extension of what they were already doing with crickets and worms.
Then there is cicada ice cream. First The Bent Spoon collected cicadas from the yard of someone they knew had not used pesticides during the 35 years they have lived there (in other words, two life cycles for the Brood X cicada). Their version including crushing the cicadas and mixing them with dark chocolate to form chips then putting the chips in their delicious vanilla ice cream.
The Bent Spoon, which opened 17 years ago as the cicadas were last erupting, could draw on some precedence. In 2011, an ice cream shop in Missouri made a batch of cicada ice cream that sold out before it hit their display case. They used the 13-year cicadas, so if you are really curious, you only have to wait three more years, and travel to Missouri to try it. Otherwise, you have to wait until 2038 to try it at The Bent Spoon. I'm willing to bet, The Bent Spoon just used their own creativity to make the flavor as they are always inventing new flavors using locally grown ingredients.
A couple more links about The Bent Spoon's ice cream:
Their first batch
Their second batch
As for our experience, on Friday, June 18th I saw The Bent Spoon posted that their cicada ice cream would be available the next day at noon until they ran out. I told Don, who was up for the challenge. My plan was to get on line starting at 11 (one hour early), his was to get on line by 10 in order to beat the crowd. Beat the crowd he did, he was first in line (technically #73 as they started with 73 that day). Almost immediately someone joined him. She was smart -- as the sun moved so did she, sitting in the shade knitting. By 11 there were about a half a dozen people in line, include the father of one of the employees who was told no favoritism for him, he had to stand in line like everyone else. By the time I joined him closer to 11:30, the line was about 25 people deep. A quietly festive feeling was emerging as I was encouraging passerbyers with scrunched up noses to give it a try (some took on the challenge).
A few minutes before noon staff started handing out tickets. We were told we could walk around and come back when our number was called. No one left the line, at least no one near the front. They handed out tickets for as many as they thought they could serve, and told the others they were on stand-by, or after 99 they had to replenish the machine, who knows. I wasn't grilling anyone.
People kept coming up and taking pictures and asking about why we were standing in line for so long. They were so distracting when the scooper called NUMBER 73, Don didn't realize she was talking to him. Fortunately he recovered quickly. We ordered a cup of cicada ice cream and a cup of dark chocolate rosemary ice cream in case the cicada ice cream was really bad. Each cup was $6 and contained two scoops. We then found some shade across the street and watched the fun.
I enjoyed watching people taking selfies with their ice cream. Someone was making a Tik Tok video nearby. Collectively, we embraced it as live cicadas were dive bombing around us, and singing their mating songs.
The dad of the scooper joined us. He only asked for one scoop, had we realized this was an option, we would have, too. After about the tenth serving they limited everyone to one scoop cicada, one scoop anything else. No pre-orders. No milkshakes. No pints. The dad told us they made three pans of ice cream, each one making about 20 servings. We wondered how long before they sold out. Would the dad in the yellow shirt we encouraged to join the line at noon get ice cream for him and his family? (They did.) Would the woman who showed us her ticket #82 get hers (as in 109 numbers after Don's)? (She did, too.) They stopped an hour later at #83.
What did it taste like? If I hadn't known there were bugs in the chocolate chips, I would not have tasted anything different. I know, what a disappointment! Later in the day, though, I felt like there were tiny bits of bugs in my mouth. That might have been all in my head, though.
For those less adventurous, perhaps you should try this Arlington ice cream shop's version of cicada ice cream, made from cone on its side, chocolate ice cream, sprinkles and red candies for the eyes. No cicadas were used for these treats.
See you in 2038!
To learn more about cicadas from a more scientific perspective, check out Che's video. Che is a naturalist we met at the Lenape Village back when Ashley volunteered there each week.
No comments:
Post a Comment