Monday Memories – That’s My Valentine

Twenty-four years ago Calvin and I were asked to be in charge of our first stake handcart trek.  Some of the boys that were on that handcart trek were survivalists.  They had worked in the Anasazi wilderness program and knew what plants were safe to eat and didn’t squirm at killing chickens and frying them for supper.  (They even saved the shell-less eggs they found in the hens for their breakfast the next morning.)  They were a fun group of boys to trek with.

A year or two later our community had a grasshopper infestation  – chemicals and insecticides kept them from rivaling the Mormon cricket situation or the great grasshopper plague that Ma and Pa Ingalls endured – but they were numerous, troublesome, and caused crop-loss just the same.  The local newspaper had a big article about a family that cooked and ate the grasshoppers.  First they herded them into a trench by banging on garbage can lids and then roasted them.  It was the family of some of the boys on that handcart trek.  Calvin has wanted to deep fry grasshoppers ever since.  He said whereas they don't eat carrion they would be good.

He finally got his chance.  He teaches Sunday school to sixteen years olds and they were studying about John the Baptist this week.  They discussed John's mission to prepare the way for the Savior, his humble personality, his commitment to truth.  They talked of his miraculous birth and his mother raising him in the wilderness on “locusts and wild honey.”  That scripture, and Calvin’s interpretation, was the only encouragement he needed to finally deep fry grasshoppers.  He even battered a few.  He graciously shared them with me . . . and his class.  And we ate them.

Calvin pulling the legs off the crickets.  He didn't think the kids should have to eat the legs.  I told him I thought that was the least of his worries, but admitted it was a thoughtful gesture.

I know this isn't a cooking blog and so step by step pictures are unnecessary;
nevertheless, here are the crickets floating in the batter.

Calvin insisted they be seasoned before we eat them.  I don't think that pepper made a lick of difference.   (Thank heavens he didn't garnish them.  I'm not sure I could have eaten them if they'd been lying in a bed of parsley.)

That’s my Valentine.  He brings me flowers and writes me love notes and shares his crickets.  I love him intensely and appreciate him immensely.