My Very First Cicada...Followed by Even More Cicadas...

What is the weirdest thing you've ever ate?
Bears? Snails? Crocodiles?
Organs? Brains? Testicles?
Well, being a local born Taiwanese plus spending numerous years in America,
I can proudly say that I'm very familiar with the above mentioned items,
However, there is still that one category of semi-popular ingredients around the world that I have not ventured into - BUGS!

Bugs can be a rare find in the states,
However, they are one of the stable ingredients in other parts of the world,
Some are used in alcoholic drinks,
Some are made into candied sweets,
Some are deep fried and served as snacks.

"Luckily," I got my bug-fix last weekend at a restaurant serving Hakka food,
It was fried cicadas that I ate -

There're supposed to be a whole plate of fried critters instead of a few from a paper cup,
Apparently I was the only person from our table that is willing and daring enough to try,
So my generous waitress actually secretly grabbed a few from the kitchen and let me try for free.

The thoughts of eating fried cicada was indeed frightening,
I actually had to turn the bug with the back facing my eyes, so that I won't see so many legs while downing the protein-packed snack.

This is how I conquered my psychological barrier,
Cicada is just like shrimps or lobsters,
Seriously, they both got many many legs with bodies wrapped inside segments of shells,
Don't you think?

I've got to embrace this opportunity and carefully savored the bugs, especially chances of having friends tough-it-up to try the critters with me or running into nice waitress handing me small samples all the time are slight...or more so - impossible.

Even better with peanuts! -

The texture is  just like tiny soft shell crabs, or small fried oysters with fish scales on,
You can kind of imagine what I'm talking about right?
Taste-wise, not as earthy as I expected,
Basically there's no strong aroma present, I can only taste the seasoning and the fried crumbs, and it was in fact...pretty good!

Will I order it again? Probably not,
But will I eat it again? I actually don't mind at all,
Maybe fried tarantulas next time?