Presented by Carolyn Berg, David Hammond, Catherine Lambrecht
Monday, May 20, 2024 at 7 PM Central Time

This year will be the fourth generation of Brood XIII cicadas I have encountered. For those emerging soon, I have known their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

The great-grandparents from 51-years-ago encountered my teenager self. I collected and kept some in a jar of alcohol in a kitchen cabinet. Others I tossed at my sisters who screamed while I laughed.

The lost generation of brood XIII was the grandparents 34 years ago. The second generation appeared in 1990 was one of missed opportunity. I knew they were edible, but didn’t have the support group of people willing to take a chance with me. Later read of an entomologist at the Field Museum who had a gathering to eat cicadas on pizzas. I felt I had missed my tribe.

Of the generation I knew the best, it is this generation’s parents. Along for the adventure 17 years ago was David Hammond (food and dining editor at Newcity), his wife Carolyn Berg, and Marilyn Pocius (author of Cook’s Guide to Chicago) as we were cooking and willing to eat Cicadas. More than incidentally, we gladly talked about the experience for the media after David made a glib remark on Yelp for Chicago Tonight, Good Morning America, German and Japanese television.

The gang is back together to rehash and share their stories from 2007 and how we cooked those cicadas. It was a very memorable and intensely fun experience over a two-week period. As much as I have talked about the Raccoon experience, which also included David, this story has never been rehashed beyond ourselves.

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Monday, May 20, 2024
7 PM Central Time
via Zoom

If you have any questions or wish for a link,
please e-mail: Culinary.Historians@gmail.com