Inago no tsukudani

Inago no tsukudani (いなごの佃煮) is a Japanese dish featuring rice grasshoppers that are boiled in soy sauce and sugar.

The locusts are prepared in the "tsukudani" style of cooking (boiled in soy sauce and sugar).

The dish is traditional in Japan's inland and mountain regions, including Nagano and Fukushima, where it once served as an important nutritional supplement.

[1] Locusts have been regarded as natural enemies of agricultural crops since ancient times because of their ability to swarm, which can lead to plagues.

They are cooked in a hot frying pan without oil and stirred to remove all traces of water from their bodies.