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Sarah Dwyer, of Chouquette Chocolates in Bethseda, started
coating cicadas in chocolate and selling them when the
periodical Brood X emerged this spring for the first time since
2004.
Now her chocolate shop has a ten-day backlog for cicada orders.
They are delicious, she says.
"When you combine the chocolate, the cinnamon, and the nuttiness
of the bugs, it really gives you that holiday feeling of when
you're walking around a big city and they're roasting nuts on
the sidewalk, that cinnamon smell, it's really what it tastes
like," Dwyer said.
Dwyer and her employees gather the cicadas from a copse of trees
behind their chocolaterie. The bugs are so numerous, they land
right on the employees. The cicadas are then put in a paper bag
and placed in the freezer, where the cold temperature puts them
to sleep before they die. She then boils the cicadas to clean
them, and crisps them in an air fryer.
Once the cicadas have been fried, Dwyer sprinkles them with
either cinnamon or savory Old Bay seasoning and they are ready
to be covered in chocolate.
"I did go to pastry school in Paris to learn my dipping
technique. I'm pretty sure no one thought I would be using it on
cicadas," she said.
For Dwyer, this is a chance for consumers to become more
familiar with a type of protein she thinks will be a lot more
popular by the next time these insects start to sing again.
"There's not enough protein to go around, and I think, I really
do think that in 2038, people will not think twice about eating
a bug at all," Dwyer said.
(Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and
Karishma Singh)
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