DAYTON – The arrival of the 17-year cicadas has been accompanied by a swarm of recipes for eating the red-eyed bugs.
Now, a Dayton pizza joint has gotten into the act with a cicada pizza.
The Pizza Bandit, located at the Yellow Cab Tavern on E. 4th Street, has tested out a Spicy Thai Cicada Pie, made from “locally foraged” Brood X cicadas.
The recipe calls for blanched and sautéed cicadas, a spicy Thai sauce and a Cicada wing-adorned crust.
The restaurant is not selling the cicada-topped pizzas.
In its Facebook post, the business points out, “We’re not even sure if we legally can sell you locally foraged Cicadas.”
While cicadas are not toxic, the Food and Drug Administration has warned people not to eat the insects if they are allergic to seafood because they share a “family relation to shrimp and lobsters.”