Inago no tsukudani (いなごの佃煮) is a Japanese dish featuring rice

grasshoppers Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grasshop ...

that are boiled in soy sauce and sugar. ''Inago'' is the Japanese word for locust. The locusts are prepared in the "

tsukudani is small seafood, meat or seaweed that has been simmered in soy sauce and mirin. As a flavorful accompaniment to plain rice, tsukudani is made salty enough to not go bad, allowing high osmotic pressure to preserve the ingredients from microbial ...

" style of cooking (boiled in soy sauce and sugar). The dish is traditional in Japan's inland and mountain regions, including

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and

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, where it once served as an important nutritional supplement.

Background

Locusts have been regarded as natural enemies of agricultural crops since ancient times because of their ability to swarm, which can lead to plagues. There is no way of avoiding this phenomenon other than decreasing the number of locusts before they swarm. People suffered from locust plagues because the locusts left them with nothing to eat after they swarmed; thus, people started to eat them. Because they contain a large amount of

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, they can be a rich source of energy.

Preparation

Before cooking, the locusts are placed into a box or bag without food for one night to remove the feces from their bodies. The locusts are added to boiling water and drained. They are cooked in a hot frying pan without oil and stirred to remove all traces of water from their bodies. Oil is added, and they are stir-fried to be crispy.

References

{{reflist Japanese cuisine