Save the cricket

Whilst vainly digging my vegetable patch hoping that the Oka I planted in the spring had survived, I came across this little fellow, who was decidedly sluggish and not inclined to leap and bound, but manfully struggled in the furrows, trying to reach the comfort and safety of the cavern in the top right.

I think it is a grasshopper rather than a cricket, but Milton didn't write of grassshoppers so I decided to read up on crickets instead.

Crickets are popular as a live food source for carnivorous pets like frogs, lizards, tortoises, salamanders, and spiders. Feeding crickets with nutritious food in order to pass the nutrition onto animals that eat them is known as gut loading. In addition to this, the crickets are often dusted with a mineral supplement powder to ensure complete nutrition to the pet.

Various species of crickets are a part of people's diets in some countries, and are considered delicacies of high cuisine in places like Mexico. In Cambodia and southern part of Vietnam, cricket is well known as a delicious food. It is prepared by deep frying the soaked and cleaned insect in oil.

Grasshoppers on the other hand are eaten as a good source of protein. In southern Mexico for example, chapulines are regarded for their high content of protein, minerals and vitamins. They are usually collected at dusk, using lamps or electric lighting, in sweep nets. Sometimes they are placed in water for 24 hours, after which they can be boiled or eaten raw, sun-dried, fried, flavoured with spices, such as garlic, onions, chile, drenched in lime, and used in soup or as a filling for various dishes. They are abundant in Central and Southern Mexican food and street markets.
They are served on skewers in some Chinese food markets, like the Donghuamen Night Market.[3]
Raw grasshoppers should be eaten with caution, as they may contain tapeworms.[4]
In some countries in Africa, grasshoppers are an important food source, as are other insects, adding proteins and fats to the daily diet, especially in times of food crisis. They are often used in soup. The "grasshoppers" eaten in Uganda and neighbouring areas are called nsenene, but they are in fact bush crickets, also called katydids.
In some countries in the Middle East, grasshoppers are boiled in hot water with salt, left in the sun to dry then eaten as snacks.

I didn't eat it nor did I harvest and eat any Okas which had failed to materialise though the foliage remained healthy until it died off at the end of October. I still have some growing in a pot and will test that tomorrow. If that still hash't produced any roots I may have to revert to eating katydids after all.
[edit]