CICADA GASTRONOMY: Biologist Jenna Jadin sips a "red eye cocktail" made with Brood II cicadas at her Washington, D.C. home on May 28. Jadin specializes in cooking the insect and wrote a Cicada-licious cookbook when she was a university student. Some of her recipes include: "Maryland cicadas" with onions, potatoes and corn; "Shanghai cicadas" with soy sauce, garlic and turnips; and "pizza a la cicada," with basil, olives and onions (FABIENNE FAUR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Deep below the Earth a great army has awakened. For 17 years they have slept, more than 30 billion of them, and now they have emerged red-eyed to make noise, have babies and die after a few short weeks of life in the sun. It's the Great Cicada Swarmageddon of 2013. Brood II is here.

Cicadas are known as chán in China and are a symbol of rebirth. They are often confused with locusts, but are not destructive to crops nor do they bite or sting. The insects are 2 cm to 5 cm long and live most of their lives underground as nymphs. Most have a lifespan of 2 to five years, but some (like Brood II) live for 17 years and emerge in huge swarms to avoid predators. They produce one of the loudest sounds of all insects—a buzzing wail that collectively rises louder than a subway train.

"It'll be as loud as a rock concert," University of Maryland entomologist Michael Raupp told NBC News, "but hey, these are teenagers, they've been underground for 17 years. They're going to get in trees. They're going to sing."

This generation's swarm will peak in the third week of June, ranging along the Eastern seaboard from Connecticut to Georgia. Americans are in the midst of cicada-mania, with websites dedicated to tracking cicada sightings and recipe books devoted to the protein-rich creatures. An exhibit at New York's Museum of Natural History shows visitors the life stages of the fascinating bug. An online "Cicada Cam" gives West-coast fans live streaming video of cicadas emerging en masse.

Pushing the limits of insect-based entertainment, "interspecies musician" David Rothenberg, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, has performed original saxophone compositions in three states accompanied by a jar of buzzing cicadas. And, blogger Dan Mozgai gives presentations on cicada trivia, including factoids such as "They taste like piney shrimp and have a wet-cardboard texture."

While that description may not sound appetizing to Western palettes, cicadas (along with other grubs and large bugs) are an important food source in many cultures.  Savvy entrepreneurs are already cashing in on bug-themed cookbooks with recipes such as teriyaki-grilled cicadas. Proponents say the insects are gluten free, high protein and low fat—notwithstanding the "ew" factor.

"People think nothing about eating shrimp or paying a lot of money for other arthropod-based foods. Shrimp are like the cockroaches of the sea. And we eat honey — that's bee barf," cicada fan Gene Kritsky told the Washington Times.

James Beard Foundation Award-nominated chef Bun Lai, who owns Miya's Sushi in New Haven, Conneticut, agrees, saying bugs are an eco-friendly meal.

"Cicadas, just like many insects, are tasty and nutritious. They are much healthier than steak or farmed fish," Lai said. "There are no antibiotics used in their production. There's no need to use fresh water to produce [them] in a world where fresh water is a diminishing resource. And there's no [need] for grain-based feeds, and so on."

The Dutch embassy in Washington, D.C., has jumped into the fray with a June 26 soiree featuring crickets, mealworms and cicadas on the menu. Attendees will discuss insects as a food source as they snack. It's not as frivolous as it may seem. The United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) advocates insect farming as a solution to the planet's mounting food shortages. Nearly one in seven of Earth's inhabitants are chronically hungry, and there will be an estimated 2 billion more mouths to feed by 2050.

"To accommodate this number, current food production will need to almost double," said FAO authors in a recent study. "Land is scarce and expanding the area devoted to farming is rarely a viable or sustainable option. Oceans are overfished and climate change and related water shortages could have profound implications for food production. To meet the food and nutrition challenges of today – there are nearly 1 billion chronically hungry people worldwide – and tomorrow, what we eat and how we produce it needs to be re-evaluated. Inefficiencies need to be rectified and food waste reduced. We need to find new ways of growing food."

Insects, according to the FAO, can make about 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of meat for every 2 kg of feed, while cows need 8 kg (17.6 lbs.) of feed just to make 1 kg of beef. Humans already eat more than 1,900 different insect species worldwide, but bugs are a hard sell in Western nations, admits the UN.

"We are not saying that people should be eating bugs," says Eva Muller, director of FAO's Forest Economic Policy and Products Division, in a statement on how forests can fight hunger. "We are saying that insects are just one resource provided by forests, and insects are pretty much untapped for their potential for food, and especially for feed."

Bugs just need better marketing, Muller said. For example, locusts are known as "sky prawns" in Australia to make them a little more appetizing.

So what do cicadas taste like? Some say the meat is slightly nutty, or like asparagus. Others say the crunchy treats taste like shrimp, or popcorn.

"They are best eaten just hatched, as they can be poached immediately," Ed Johnson, director of science at the Staten Island Museum, told reporters at a taste-testing party.

Despite adventurous eaters, most Westerners have not jumped on the bandwagon of cicada cuisine. Perhaps in another 17 years, when Brood II emerges once again, cicada burgers will play a more prominent role in summer barbeques.

The author is a contributing writer to Beijing Review, living in New York City