Kosher Locusts

Note that the word for "winged creatures" (עוֹף) is usually translated "fowl" and that's what it usually means. But in verse 19, it definitely means winged creatures because they're described as "swarming" and the Torah describes bugs, not birds, as swarming. If verse 20 is about birds, then your Torah portion (from which this verse comes) seems to say no bugs can be eaten, but in the parallel and generally similar list about kosher animals in the Torah book of Leviticus, it names four bugs that can be eaten:

How did the previous generations of rabbis resolve the contradiction in a text they believed to perfect and consistent? They reinterpreted Deuteronomy 14:20:

This seems astounding and it is, but a little less astounding than it may seem to readers who aren't that familiar with rabbinic text study methods. First, we've already seen that עוף can sometimes refer to winged creatures other than bugs. And here, Chizkuni (or the author he's citing) is probably thinking something like this: The Torah didn't have to tell us we could eat pure fowl; if it's pure, we know we can eat it. So it must be trying to tell us something else. The most sensible possibility is that it's meant to modify verse 19 by adding that you actually can eat the pure bugs, namely the grasshoppers/locusts. Nonetheless, to call this the "plain/literal meaning of the text" is a bit of a stretch.

In any case, the Torah in Leviticus says these certain bugs are kosher ("pure") and that becomes codified in Jewish law in the Mishnah (~200 CE) like this:

Here, the Mishnah is apparently using "hagav" as a generic term that includes the first three bugs mentioned in the Torah in addition to the one it calls "hagav." That's confusing, since the Torah used four different names. Maybe the first three are supposed to be subcategories? And it's not clear whether Rabbi Yosei is right. In fact, some later commentators think he's not and some think he is.

A passage in the Talmud lists twelve Hebrew and Aramaic names of bugs (and a bird, maybe?) that are kosher:

But:

So Rashi (1040-1105) says we can't eat any bugs because we don't know which were called hagav. And that has been the practice in Europe apart from Spain and, eventually in Mesopotamia, Eretz Yisrael, and Tunisia. But in Yemen and Morocco, they kept eating certain locusts. The places that stopped eating locusts seem to have done so because Rashi became more and more revered and hard to disagree with over the last few centuries.

But the Yemenites stuck to their tradition:

The Wikipedia article on kosher locusts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_locust) indicates that the Yemenites consider three species kosher: Among Yemenite Jews "continuous tradition" exists for 3 species: desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria), migratory locust (Locusta migratoria), and Egyptian locust (Anacridium aegyptium).

So how are locusts eaten?

So apparently, pickling was one ancient way of preparing locusts.

According to this article about locusts being eaten during a locust invasion in Israel in 2013, there are several delicious ways to eat locusts:

• Chocolate-covered
• Drop them into a boiling broth, clean them off, and roll in a mixture of flour, coriander seeds, garlic and chilli powder. Then deep-fry them.
• Pan-frying is another good option, and they are "crunchy, tasty and sweet" ... when mixed with caramel and sprinkled into meringue.

You'll be happy to know that kosher locusts can be bought from the Biblical Museum of Natural History and shipped to the United States (and probably can be obtained elsewhere as well). https://www.biblicalnaturalhistory.org/product-page/locusts