In the East, as elsewhere, since the Biblical days of John’s
“locusts and honey,” locusts have been deemed more or less
edible. In Palestine to this day they are considered a luxury.
The Jews fry them in sesame oil, sesame being the grain of
which mention is made in the story of “Ali Baba and the
Forty Thieves,” a favorite tale in the _Arabian Nights_
entertainments.
In Arabia Petrea locusts are dried in the sun and then ground
into a sort of flour for baking; and in Central Africa certain
tribes employ locusts for making a thick brown soup.
In Madagascar they are baked in huge jars, fried in grease, and
then mixed with rice, forming a dainty much affected by the
dusky inhabitants of that big island.
The Algerians have a simpler method. They merely boil the
locusts in water and salt them to the taste. The Arabians grind
and bake the locusts as cakes, roast them in butter, or else
crush them in a mixture of camel’s cheese and dates.
Locusts are also eaten, in times of famine, in southern Russia,
generally by the poorest of the poor, among whom the insects are
smoked like fish. In the preparation of locusts for food the
legs and wings are invariably detached.
It is said that, while the flavor of locusts is strangely
disagreeable in the raw state, this flavor is readily disguised
and even becomes agreeable when the insect is cooked. Some of
the locust soups are, we are told, scarcely to be distinguished
from beef broth; and when the little insects are fried in their
own oil and slightly salted they take on a pleasing nutty
flavor. (Text.)--_Harper’s Weekly._
(1876)