Students Cook Cicadas for First Time: ‘It’s Probably Something We Should Just Try Out’

Brood X cicadas have returned after 17 years, and Maryland is the epicenter for the swarms.

MyMCM joined two college students from Montgomery County who are seeing the creatures for the first time – that they can remember – and who were set on having the “full” experience.

Natalie Hays, an incoming sophomore at the University of Maryland, has been collecting cicadas around the yard of her Derwood home. She and her friend Stephanie Kueh, an incoming sophomore at Montgomery College, decided to follow a cicada stir-fry recipe from a cookbook written by a UMD student in 2004, during the previous Brood X invasion.

“It’s probably something we should just try out, take advantage of, so I probably will keep collecting them,” Hays said. The friends plan on following another recipe from the same cicada cookbook.

About Maryam Shahzad

Maryam is a reporter with Montgomery Community Media. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism. Previously, she was an intern with MCM. She can be reached at mshahzad@mymcmedia.org or on Twitter @maryam_mcm.

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