An Ohio restaurant has found a use for the Brood X cicadas taking over the Midwest.
The Pizza Bandit, located at Yellow Cab Tavern in downtown Dayton, tested out a “Cicada Pizza” concoction.
On Friday, a cicada-foraging customer brought a bucket of cicadas to The Pizza Bandit, knowing the restaurant enjoys experimenting with unusual ingredients. James Burton, Pizza Bandit partner and chef, chose a Thai-inspired pizza to go with the rare ingredient, according to Dayton.com.
In addition to local cicadas, the pizza featured miso hoisin sriracha sauce, mozzarella, provolone, mushrooms, cabbage, green onion, mango, cilantro and a spicy Thai sauce.
“We’ve heard from customers both locally and as far as hundreds of miles away wanting to try the pie, some even offering to bring their own cicadas,” Johnson told Dayton.com. “We’ve also heard from people who were outright angry, indignant and threatening that we even made one tasting pie.”
This cicada-inspired pizza is not for purchase.
In a Facebook post showing off the pie, the restaurant noted, “You can NOT get this pizza by the slice or whole pie because we’re not even sure if we legally can sell you locally foraged Cicadas but there’s tons of other delicious pizzas to round out your Sunday.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned people not to eat cicadas if they are allergic to seafood because the insects share a family relation to shrimp and lobsters.
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