How Adventurous Are You El Paso- Would You Try Cicada Tacos?
It's been about 17 years in the making, but Cicada's are back!
Much like "IT" or the monster from "Jeepers Creepers", Cicadas, well a very specific type of Cicadas, emerge every 13 or 17 years. I never knew that, much like I didn't know that Cicadas are not locusts- until this morning!
Apparently they emerge between April and May, they're super loud and they start to die off in late July. Another thing I learned today is, they can be added to tacos! Well, at least in Virginia they are!
If you're adventurous, and I know many in El Paso are, a restaurant named "Cocina on Market" in Leesburg, Virginia is serving up cicada tacos! It's a creation by chef Tobias Padovano, whose Mexican restaurant already features grasshopper tacos (which aren't bad, by the way) so adding cicadas to the menu wasn't that crazy of an idea.
The presentation is beautiful, and I'm sure prepared the way chef Tobias makes it, it works.
Chef Tobias boils the cicadas, bakes them and plucks their legs and iridescent wings. He then sautés them in onion and garlic, topped with serrano chile, avocado and radish in a mole verde sauce, and wrapped in flour tortillas. I feel like a tortilla de maiz would have been better, but I'm not a chef so what do I know?
As for how they taste, one taster said: "You can definitely feel a bit of the crunch. But you start to chew it, it kind of just melts in." I feel like maybe they're like tripitas, you have to really fry them, or in this case, bake them, so they're not so chewy. So, what do you think El Paso- would you try them?