There are few, if any, less-appetizing phrases than “Swarm of Locusts”, but that hasn’t stopped an enterprising Israeli chef from turning lemons into lemonade, and insects into disgusting cooked insects.
Meet Moshe Basson, adventurous (culinary shorthand for “sadistic”) head chef at trendy Jerusalem restaurant Eucalyptus. While most Israelis see this past week’s locust invasion as a nuisance of biblical proportions, Basson sees only opportunity. Disgusting disgusting opportunity. You see, in the Jerusalem restaurant world, kosher is king. And, while delicious actual foods like bacon, lobster, and bacon-wrapped lobster don’t make the ritual cut, insectoid snacking seems very much a-okay; This alone should be enough to cause even the most devout Breslover Hasid to question not merely the wisdom of the almighty, but whether one exists at all.
In any case, Basson recently demonstrated his special recipe for making deep-fried locust risotto, which involves plucking off the wings and heads (God forbid you should eat a locust with it’s head still attached. That would be disgusting.)
Here’s Chef Basson in action:
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I remember reading that they ate Locusts in the ancient middle east. I am not sure about this, but I read that eating them was not a violation of the Biblical dietary laws. Most of the western world cannot eat something like this because we were not raised to eat it.