There was a huge locust invasion in the United States in 1874. They say the swarm infested 2 million square miles. Wreaked havoc.
The people were handed lemons, they made lemonade…
“They’re here! The sky is full of ’em. The whole yard is crawling with the nasty things.” A settler in Edwards County, Kansas, reported: “I never saw such a sight before. This morning, as we looked up toward the sun, we could see millions in the air. They looked like snowflakes.” …‘They beat against the houses, swarm in at the windows, cover the passing trains…But there were just too many…”
Enter Charles Valentine Riley. The Missouri state entomologist noted that livestock and wild animals happily ate the locusts and that man had used the insect as food since ancient times. Riley thus proposed “entomophagy”—simply put, eating the bugs—as a way to reduce their numbers while nourishing hungry settlers…Hard-pressed pioneers gave Riley’s recipes a try. Gourmands claimed that locust coated in butter, fried and seasoned with salt and pepper tasted just like crawfish. Others elected to add their crispy locusts to broths and stews.
Well, you get the gist. We recently posted about another article regarding Charles Valentine Riley recently, that focused on how he successfully utilized the first ever biological controls in the world.
Click here to read the full article “1874: The Year of the Locust” by Chuck Lyons for Historynet.
