Locusts are sometimes boiled at Wadinoon for food for men and beasts.[399]
The Arabs of Morocco, we learn from Mr. Jackson, esteem Locusts a great delicacy; and, during the summer of 1799 and the spring of 1800, after the plague had almost depopulated Barbary, dishes of them were served up at the principal repasts. Their usual way of dressing these insects, was to boil them in water half an hour, then sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and fry them, adding a little vinegar. The body of the insect is only eaten, and resembles, according to this gentleman, the taste of prawns. For their stimulating qualities, the Moors prefer them to pigeons. A person may eat a plateful of them containing two or three hundred without any ill effects.[400] In another place, however, Mr. Jackson says the poor people, when obliged to live altogether on this kind of food, become meager and indolent.[401]
In Morocco, the price of provisions falls when the Locusts have entered the neighborhood.[402]
The authority of Capt. Riley is, that Locusts are esteemed very good food by the Moors, Arabs, and Jews of Barbary, who catch large numbers of them in their season, and throw them, while alive and jumping, into a pan of boiling argan oil, where they are allowed to remain, hissing and frying, till their wings are burned off and their bodies sufficiently cooked; they are then poured out and eaten. Riley says they resemble, in consistence and flavor, the yolks of hard-boiled hens' eggs.[403]
Capt. Beechey tells us he saw many asses, heavily laden with Locusts for food, driven into the town of Mesurata, in Tripoli.[404]
Barth, in Central Africa, saw whole calabashes filled with roasted Locusts, which, he says, occasionally form a considerable part of the food of the natives, particularly if their grain has been destroyed by this plague, as they can then enjoy not only the agreeable flavor of the dish, but also take a pleasant revenge for the ravages of their fields.[405]
Adanson, after describing an immense swarm of Locusts that covered an extent of several leagues which he saw, says the negroes of Gambia eat these insects, and have different ways of dressing them--some pounding and boiling them in milk, others only boiling them on coals.[406]