Most restaurants strive to keep bugs out of the food, but one Columbia ice-cream shop had a very different idea. KMBC reports that Columbia public health officials have advised Sparky's Homemade Ice Cream to not make a second batch of cicada-flavored ice cream because there aren't any city or county guidelines governing the proper preparation of bugs for consumption.
Sparky's made a small batch last week, selling out in a single day, as customers downed scoops like they were on Fear Factor.
The ice-cream shop has told its customers that the next batch won't be coming until 2024 -- when the cicadas return in 13 years. But KMBC provides enough information that you could probably re-create a close approximation of the "peanut" flavor of the cicadas at home:
Employees collected the bountiful bugs in their backyards and removed most of the dead cicadas' wings but saved some for texture's sake.The cicadas were fully cooked by boiling then covered in brown sugar and milk chocolate. The base ice cream is a brown sugar and butter flavor.There's a lively discussion on Sparky's Facebook page with a few customers suggesting that the shop branch out into June bugs. Do you think you would ever eat a spoonful of cicada-flavored ice cream?
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