In a short time you will no longer hear in any restaurant in the world that "Waiter, there is a fly in my soup!", because surely the fly will be one of the ingredients of the dish we have ordered. According to a 2013 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), eating insects may be a possible solution to world hunger. They are a very nutritious and healthy food source with a high content of fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals, and their production is very cheap. It is estimated that, to date, they are part of the traditional diet of at least 2 billion people in the world. More than 1900 species are eaten, mainly in Africa and Asia, and the most consumed are:beetles, caterpillars, ants, grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, cicadas... and yes, also flies. And as you are suspecting, also in ancient times they gave entomophagy.
The philosopher Aristotle recommended the consumption of cicadas…
They taste best in their larval stage just before the last transformation. Among adults, males are better, followed by females that have just copulated.
In the 1st century BC, Diodorus of Sicily already called Acridophagi (from Acrididae, acrididae) or “locust and grasshopper eaters” to the people of the kingdom of Aksum (what would now be Ethiopia and Eritrea). In Naturalis Historia , Pliny the Elder tells us that the aristocrats of Rome loved to eat beetle larvae macerated in flour and wine. Likewise, it provides us with a recipe book of insects to treat various conditions:cicadas for bladder problems, cockroaches for otitis, lobster for female cystitis, spider web as a bandage... And to finish off, I will go to the Old Testament, in Leviticus , to find this quote:
[…] they shall consider all winged insects that walk on four legs to be unclean. But they will be able to eat, among the animals of this class, all those that have the longest hind legs, and that is why they can jump on the ground, that is, all the varieties of locusts, grasshoppers and crickets.
And if God told Moses this, I will not be the one to say no to rice with crickets, stewed ants, battered scorpion or worm salad.