Our Revenge on the Grasshoppers

Phil here.  Kristen asked me to be her guest blogger today.  I returned home from Costa Rica last weekend, and found that the grasshoppers were making a feast in our garden.  The large numbers of grasshoppers in our area was even a topic of conversation at our bishopric meeting on Sunday.  I mentioned that we should just eat the grasshoppers to get our revenge.  I have eaten locusts in pickled form, but I have always wanted to try the hoppers in a taco, Oaxaca style.  The problem is that the Oaxacans use very young grasshoppers, and our pests had been eating so well that they had attained a far more mature size.

The thought of eating my grasshoppers took a firm possession of me on Monday morning when I was working in the yard.  They were everywhere.  I began grabbing them when they were in easy reach, and I soon had a nice herd of little appetizers:

 I left them in the bucket all day so that they could rid themselves of their last meals.  When it was time for dinner, I put a pot of water on the BBQ Grill and started it boiling.  In the meantime, I pulled off the legs and the heads --- the legs can be left on, but the barbs tend to wedge themselves in your gums.  The great thing about grasshoppers is that when you pull the heads straight out of the bodies, the stomachs come right out as well:

If you are not squeemish, you can leave the innards in for a little more juicy flavor, but many hoppers carry tapeworm in the stomach, and as a tapeworm survivor, I prefer to take the safe route. 

Once the legs, heads, and inward parts are removed, throw them in the boiling water.  Boiling them before frying softens the casings.  I left them in for about 15 minutes, but they could come out as soon as they turn a bit red:

Once they have been boiled, the wings are easily removed. Once the wings are off, you are left with a nice pile that looks (and smells) like shrimp.

 If they were small, I would love to cook them in a chili and lime sauce at this point.  But since they were large, I dipped them into egg and rolled them in corn meal: 

The funniest thing I heard all evening was when I pulled the corn meal out of the pantry. Kristen said, "That has been in there for a while. Better check it for weevil."  She cracks me up. If only we had a few, fat, weevils, we would have been dining in style!

Fry them in oil.  Be ready to be amazed at the "shrimp smell":

BBQ sauce was the most popular, but the honey-mustard-horseradish was good too.  Suprisingly, everyone partook:

If we do it again, I'd try bread crumbs instead of corn meal.

This is not up to Kristen's usually high and exacting cooking standards, but it was fun.