Happy June! I’m fresh back from a week in Virginia, where a strange sound awakened me around 5:30 most mornings. The first day, my brain registered it as someone’s home alarm system going off incessantly in the distance. I cracked open the quarter pie window of my childhood bedroom, and the outside world was loud—filled with a high, ringing roar that kicked up with the first hints of light and pulsated in the background throughout the day. It’s everywhere, most days: in the trees, in your head, all around you. On beautiful, warm mornings after a nighttime rain, the ruckus sounds downright apocalyptic. In the evening, the din morphs into something like a bunch of lazy-sounding weed whackers whizzing up and down the street.
The sound, of course, is the chorus of Brood X cicadas emerging after 17 years underground, all of them trying to get it on before it’s all over for their red-eyed tribe for another 17 years. Everywhere there are ragged holes left in the dirt where the nymphs emerged. Their molted shells, the color of perfectly done fried chicken, adorn every climbable surface, and the adults in their new bodies stumble around unsure of what to do with themselves. Some don’t look quite right after subterranean phase; they weave around drunkenly or beat a hopeless circle on their backs. The air is filled with them, like tiny drones, and each time a squirrel scampers across a tree bough a flock is unleashed into the sky. The sidewalks are littered with a flotsam of wings (the birds, who are pretty psyched right now, apparently spit those out).
If you come upon one emerging from its shell, it’s an eerie and beautiful sight: a diaphanous creature with etched crystal wings and eyes like little rubies. This is the stage when you can capture and eat them, apparently—"tree shrimp,” according to this guide. Within minutes their exoskeletons have hardened and darkened.
Their numbers are astonishing. They’re especially thick around my favorite tree, a huge and magnificently twisty old Japanese maple whose branches were barely large enough to support me and my sister when we were little, and under whose boughs, as teens, we were made to pose awkwardly for a portrait photographer. At the time of that picture (which I hope Cassie and I destroyed all copies of), the generation that would become the 2004 emergers were biding their time silently beneath us.
In cities that are reopening right now—definitely in my neighborhood of Brooklyn—the human population is behaving much like those cicadas. People are flocking out of their homes and into the streets and parks and bars and outdoor restaurant terraces (definitely one of the upsides of covid times). We’re not all getting it right. Some of us are still a little disoriented and dazed, and some have emerged a little damaged from the long stint underground. Others—plenty—are spreading their wings and looking for action.
Are the Brood X cicadas another plague descending upon us? Or are they a symbol of hope and renewal and the tenacity of nature? I’m a Spring optimist these days, so I’m leaning heavily toward the latter view.
Check out this cool Washington Post interactive on the cicadas’ life cycle.
If you’re not into eating bugs, here are some other seasonal cooking ideas (with links to recipes):
Asparagus:
•Throw them in a hot skillet with some butter or olive oil, a little salt. Turn them to brown on all sides; you just need around 5 minutes (a little more if the spears are fat). When they are almost done, scatter a bunch of shredded parm over them and let it crisp at the edges a bit. Squeeze some lemon on and serve.
•Steam and top with ramp butter or miso butter.
•Rub with olive oil, salt and chili flakes and throw on the grill
Strawberries:
•Try this vintage recipe for strawberry shortcake made with one huge biscuit.
•Buttermilk panna cotta with fresh strawberries
Pea Shoots:
•Wilt the sturdier ones with miso and Spring garlic
•Use the wispier pea tendrils in this salad with pecorino and almonds
Fig Leaves:
Yes you can use them! Especially the tender new ones. They have a very special flavor. Here’s how:
•Wrap up fish like fresh sardines or branzino and grill.
•This fig leaf and honey ice cream from David Lebovitz will exceed your wildest expectations.
Green Tomatoes:
•Fried green tomatoes are the best!
Greens, miscellaneous:
•Add some green tops (radish, carrot) to basil in a pesto to stretch it out and eliminate food waste.
If you love farmer’s markets but can’t always catch them, check out Our Harvest for those in NYC, Long Island, and parts of Connecticut. 25% and free delivery off your first order (or use discount code SHALLOT at checkout)!
emerging