When the Kenosha News printed recipes for cicadas last week, I thought I had seen everything. But then someone pointed me to an ice cream company that is going to feature a flavor with cicadas when these insects emerge. I was intrigued to find out if the cicada is kosher. In this week’s parasha, we find the list of animals permitted and prohibited for a Jew’s consumption, and there are insects among them!
“These you may eat among the winged swarming things that walk on all fours: all that have, above their feet, jointed legs to leap with on the ground.” Then locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers are specified. (Lev. 11:21-22) But, cicadas are not locusts. And according to halachic authorities, cicadas are not kosher.
Apparently, Yemenite Jews, do include locusts in their diets, but Ashkenazic Jews do not. I wouldn’t consider eating cicadas even if they were kosher. I was once served chapulines (fried grasshoppers) in Oaxaca, Mexico. I tried them, but then quickly washed them down with a beer. So, I won’t be saying yes to cicada ice cream, but that’s just me…I’m sticking with the kosher species. (Well, some of them!)
-Rabbi Dena A. Feingold