Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 2507 Location: New Jersey, USA
Posted: Thu Jun 03, 21 8:25 pm Post subject:
My intermittent / occasional aide-de-garden was here yesterday and mentioned that he had cooked and eaten about 7 cicadas. Freshly molted, fried up with garlic and Cajun spices. Good, he said, crunchy, with a sort of hint of mushroom flavor.
Well, after 17 years underground I suppose that can be expected.
While on the cicada topic - there are warnings that if you are allergic to shrimp you should not eat them. Also, cicadas are not kosher. No idea about halal.
many terrestrials have a partly similar biochemical construction to marine ones, so the prawn allergy thing might have more than a few legs to run with.
quite a few beetle larvae that eat trees have some mushroom tones in their flavour.
ah that explains it, i spose there were none around when the lists were compiled, ps i consider kosher and halal rules pretty good public health measures for when and where they were decided upon.
adult locusts are a bit too crunchy for my tastes but 2nd or 3rd instar ones are quite nice, never tried crickets
Do you know why cicadas aren't kosher? I don't think think they are in the general overview of things as in the Old Testament as forbidden, but would stand to be corrected. Is it because they have visible wings but are not birds? I am interested. I agree that on the whole the forbidden foods make a lot of sense from the point of view of public health.
Shane
Joined: 31 Oct 2005 Posts: 3467 Location: Doha. Is hot.
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 21 8:07 am Post subject:
According to this and this, they're not kosher purely on the grounds of not being mentioned in the Torah.
Worth noting that the periodical cicadas that everyone is so excited about eating are unique to North America; as the all-seeing, all-knowing deities upon whose words the three main texts of the world's Abrahamic religions are based apparently had no idea that the Americas existed (or the Far East, for that matter), it is not surprising that the periodic cicada doesn't get a mention.
I'd happily eat them, but then it won't surprise you to learn that I'm not too worried about my cholent pot becoming treif. Each to their own, I say!
as to wildlife there is a fair bit that are not food, more so in plants and even more in fungi
if you have never seen it caution is wise
Slim
Joined: 05 Mar 2006 Posts: 6540 Location: New England (In the US of A)
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 21 9:17 am Post subject:
Humans seyen to have a knack for taking sensible rules and extrapolating them to what seems to me to be silly conclusions.
Mrs. Slim used to work at an Orthodox Jewish preschool. She was not allowed to turn on the oven, or she would affect it's being kosher. She was expected to cook the children snacks periodically with it however. Thus, the protocol was for her to pick up one of the children and have them push the correct button to start the oven, every use.
I am afraid I agree with you on that Slim. It is rather sad that sensible rules get changed to a code that makes things rather silly like that. No reflection on the Jewish religion, as there are similar rules in place for all I am sure. Things do change though. In the UK it was the 'done thing' for women to wear hats in church when I was a child, so as I got old enough I had to have a hat for church. I still remember it with distaste as it was a mustard yellow and 'pudding basin' style.
black and red share a bed, black and yellow kill a fellow
snake law, appropriate where it originates but might be confusing elsewhere and other versions probably exist.
back to cicadas, i guess they did not know to apply to be on the guest list, folk can work with whatever their local conditions are
on a more forage than wildlife tack but appropriate, quite a few chinese nationals in europe have poisoned themselves as the sinoshroom they know from long tradition and love to eat looks very like a european one that is well nasty
my "rules" for most things(not shrooms or some plant families) are fairly simple, unless i know it is probably ok by tradition i will be wary or give it a swerve if it seems a wrong un
is it a new thing?
yes goto
sniff. ok =goto
rub on small patch of skin. ok=goto
lip rub.ok= goto
tongue test. ok=goto
very small portion+ plenty of time. ok =goto
dine
not 100% safe but better than starving, and it has found some delicious things
on my criteria fresh pineapple might fail the lip/gum test but hemlock root soup might just pass
anyway, in birdtown mr brack is very keen on cherries in the food bowl
Shane
Joined: 31 Oct 2005 Posts: 3467 Location: Doha. Is hot.
Posted: Sun Jun 06, 21 5:50 am Post subject:
Just bear in mind that rubbing a cicada on your lips is likely to get you some funny looks on the high street. Mind you, with the nation emerging from lockdown and people trying to remember how contact with other lifeforms works, maybe not.
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