In Asia, Malaysians like to eat locusts, residents of Bali, Indonesia like to eat fried butterflies, and some people in Thailand like to eat cockroaches mixed with sauce. In Africa, crickets and cicadas have become the staple foods of residents in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Botswana. In Latin America, stalls selling fried ants can be seen everywhere in Bogota, Colombia. Mexicans eat more than 50 kinds of insects such as ants, beetles, flies, wasps, dragonflies and butterflies. Central Americans often eat "moth cakes". In Europe, restaurants in Paris, the French capital, also sell a kind of baked pie made of beetle pupae. Some countries have also made canned insects and chocolate sandwiches similar to insects.

Humans have the habit of eating insects since ancient times. There is a saying in Shakespeare's famous otero: "To him, this food is as delicious as locusts now." It can be seen that locusts were once listed as delicacies.

Compared with insect food, in many countries, earthworms and snails have become treasures on the table, and eating earthworms or snails is all the rage.

Insect recipes of Jinuo people

Jinuo people have lived in tropical virgin forests for generations, and their staple food is rice and corn. Vegetables and poultry raised at home and vast forests also provide them with good conditions for obtaining rare game. Women collect food in their spare time. There is a saying among Jinuo people, called "Han Dynasty, Dai immersion, Jinuochun", which means that Han people like cooking, Dai people like dipping in seasoning, and Jinuo food is mainly cool in spring. Commonly used condiments include pepper, citronella, Schizonepeta, Jiang Ye, star anise and mint. There are also many strange recipes that are little known or even incredible, such as "chop raw", "tadpoles mixed with stinky vegetables", "steamed crab with banana leaves", "squirrel dried meat soup" and "acid stewed ant eggs" and so on. "Chopping raw meat" means chopping fresh meat into pieces, mixing with seasonings such as salt, pepper, Jiang Mo, mint and leek, and repeatedly stirring and kneading by hand until the meat is white and edible; "Tadpoles mixed with stinky vegetables" means picking up young tadpoles, washing them, scalding them with boiling water, and mixing them with seasonings before eating. It smells like stinky tofu in Beijing, but it tastes tender, smooth and soft, cool and refreshing, with endless aftertaste; Hang the hunted squirrel meat on the edge of the fire pond in the bamboo building and smoke it with fireworks to make dried meat, so that it will not be bad all year round. Slice and boil soup when eating, fresh but not greasy. There are many ants in Jinuo area, but the ants here are different. They don't live underground, but in trees. Ant eggs are also big, like mung beans. After ants lay eggs, they put them in pocket bags hanging on trees. This kind of bag is very big, some of which reach 5 kilograms. March, April and May of the lunar calendar every year is the season for ants to lay eggs. At this time, Jinuo people will go out and look for this kind of bag, cut it open with a knife, take out the ant eggs and mix them with sour seasoning. Not only is it nutritious and delicious, but it will make a "snapping" sound when it is put into the crowd. Jinuo people cook and eat around the fire pond on the second floor of the bamboo building, which has certain etiquette and attention. When eating, the whole family sits around the table next to the fireplace in order, with their parents facing the fireplace and the guests sitting by the fireplace. Give less food to guests and more diligence to them. Generally speaking, people are not interested in picking up food for guests, because they think it seems impolite to stop eating after eating. They think that people have souls, ghosts and ghosts, and Xiaomi also has a soul. So when you eat, you can't put the rice in the retort. Even if your stomach is not full, you should leave some. Otherwise, it will be empty, and the valley will not return, and people will have no food to eat. Insect vegetables, insect vegetables, the biggest feature is fresh fragrance. "Stir-fried cicada", "wild bee kernel", "stir-fried grasshopper", "scorpion climbing snow mountain" and "washing scorpion" have their own tastes. Scorpion soup is the most popular dish, and its taste is not to mention fresh. It is said that different insect dishes have different flavors, for example, crickets have lettuce flavor, wasp eggs have almond flavor, ants have walnut flavor, fly maggots have cream flavor on cakes, silkworm chrysalis has fat flavor, and grasshoppers have lean flavor. French diners especially love fruit, saying that fruit is better than caviar.

The insect feast in Daixiang, Yunnan Province is well known and smells like insects. Fermented cicada slough, fried bamboo worms, fried grasshoppers, mixed SINONOVACULA with sauce, mixed with acid ant eggs, cold ground bee eggs, sweet wood worms and clear water silkworm pupa soup are all original insect-flavored dishes. "Cicada meat stuffing" has a unique production process. First throw away the cicada's feet and wings and cut the cicada's back with a knife. Then, fill in the mixed meat stuffing, close the knife edge, and fry the cicada back meat stuffing. Crispy outside and tender inside, with the characteristics of Dai cuisine. Bamboo worm, a brown-black weevil larva, is 5 cm long and 3 cm wide. After frying in oil, it is fragrant and crisp. "Stir-fried cricket with sauce", remove the wings and internal organs, chop it into a meat paste with a knife, and mix with onions, Jiang Mo, peppers, etc. Serve. And a limited number of acid-mixed ant eggs, with the effect of expelling wind and removing dampness, often become the "finishing touch" of insect feast. Sweet, tender, beautiful, sour and refreshing "cold-mixed ground bees" are made by boiling young bees in boiling water until half-cooked, and then marinating them in sauerkraut seasoning prepared in advance. "Clear water silkworm pupa soup" is said to be the most nutritious nourishing soup, and drinking more has the effect of nourishing face, expelling toxin and strengthening kidney.

The insect dishes of Guangdong Cantonese cuisine are even more varied. Crisp and light "white roasted earthworm", tender and fragrant "fried osmanthus cicada" and "fried banana maggot" banana tree beetle, sweet and salty "pepper and salt louse", "pepper and salt cricket" and "pepper and salt bamboo maggot" bamboo tree insect pupae taste faint, delicious and mysterious. There are many kinds of insects in Cantonese cuisine recipes, such as ants, termites, scorpions, silkworm chrysalis and crickets, which are fresh, sweet, spicy, crisp and tender.

People in Shenzhen also love to eat insects. The menu of "Insect Banquet" launched by a hotel in Shenzhen is fresh and attractive. The famous dish "salt and pepper lice" is very distinctive. The meat of lice (also known as osmanthus cicada) is quite delicious. After frying, mix it with salt and pepper and chew it in your mouth. It tastes strange and smells like osmanthus. After swallowing, the teeth and cheeks remain fragrant. "Fried bamboo shoots and pupae" is also unusual. Bamboo shoot pupa is an insect that eats tender bamboo in bamboo forest. Flat and fat, thumb-sized, very fragrant after frying. "Fried queen bee pupa with shredded ginger" is to fry the white and fat queen bee pupa in an oil pan, and then add shredded ginger to fry it, which tastes like milk and cream. It is said that this product has the effects of nutrition and skin care. "Ant pupa fried egg" is rich in nutrition and prolongs life. "Wang Fengbao porridge" is not only delicious, but also has the effects of clearing away heat and toxic materials, strengthening yang and tonifying kidney.

In addition to the insect feast in Guangdong, Shandong's "fried scarab" cicada pupa and Han Man's "fried mountain shrimp" East Asian scorpion and other special insect dishes are also very popular. Now, northern Renye Fang has the courage to taste these "insect dishes", not to nourish the body, but to taste the freshness.