The Bugs are Coming For You

[Ninurta]

I recall the few school days that I actually attended where one of the classes at that time (the early seventies) was
Religious Education or 'RE' as it was scribbled on our schedules. Mr Rivers, a burly man with an Abrahamic-style
beard and kind eyes, announced to the class that in the times of Jesus and his crew, locusts would be eaten and
if we'd dare, he'd like to bring some in and we could sample them.

Being a ignorant yob at the time, I snorted and told him I'd eaten worse and so at the next lesson, on Mr Rivers'
desk was a wax-paper parcel of what we guessed were the dead insects. They were Locusts... but not the ones
we associate with crop-ravishing leaping grasshoppers, they were Locust beans.

Disraeli is correct, they tasted nice with honey.

We have locust trees of two sorts here - honey locust (rare) and black locust (much more common and good for making bows and fence posts), but I've never considered eating the beans off of them. I know some folks eat the bean pods of honey locust, and some folks eat the fried blooms off black locust, but those beans are hard as bricks, so I;ve never considered eating them.

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