Inago (not unagi or anago, but inago) - Kosher?!?!

While perusing the Swede crawfish post, I was amazed to see how large their crawfish were. My wife did not share my interest and exclaimed how disgusted she was at the bugs - "we kept them as pets in Japan and they came out of dirty rivers." As we talked, she later came out with, "I guess we used to catch these bugs as kids though; Our family would collect a big bag, we'd cook 'em and we'd eat them." WHAT?!?!? Finally she remembered the name - inago. A quick search on google came up with these babies:



Turns out they're a "regular" snack in Japan. Who knew?



Having piqued my interest, I decided a wikipedia search re: grasshoppers / locusts as food might be interesting and I find this tidbit:

"Locusts, encompassing four distinct species native to the Arabian peninsula, are the only invertebrates considered to be Kosher food. The tradition for identifying which species of locust were and were not kosher has been lost among all Jews except the Jews of Yemen. (One hypothesis links these kosher insects to the Biblical manna which was provided as food for the Israelites in the desert)."