Humans have the habit of eating insects since ancient times. There is a saying in Shakespeare's famous otero: "For 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 also become treasures on the table, and eating earthworms or snails has become 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 good conditions for them to obtain rare game. Women collect food in their spare time. There is a saying in Jinuo people, which is called "Han Dynasty, Dai immersion and Jinuochun", which means that Han people like to stir-fry and Dai people like to dip in seasonings, while Jinuo food is mainly cold in spring. Commonly used condiments include pepper, citronella, Schizonepeta, Jiang Ye, star anise and mint. There are also many little-known and even incredible weird recipes, such as "chop raw food", "tadpole mixed with stinky vegetables", "steamed crab with banana leaves", "squirrel jerky soup" and "acid stewed ant eggs". "Chopping raw meat" means chopping fresh meat, mixing it with seasonings such as salt, pepper, Jiang Mo, mint and leek, and repeatedly stirring and kneading it by hand until the meat turns white and can be eaten; "Tadpoles mixed with stinky vegetables" means picking up young tadpoles, washing them, scalding them with boiling water, and then mixing them with seasonings before eating. It smells like stinky tofu in Beijing, but it tastes tender, smooth 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, which will not be bad all year round. Slice and cook 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. Ants' 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, and some of them reach 5 kilograms. Every year, March, April and May of the lunar calendar is the season for ants to lay eggs. At this time, Jinuo people will go out to look for this kind of bag, cut it with a knife, take out the ant eggs, and mix them with sour seasoning to eat. It is not only nutritious and delicious, but also makes a "snapping" sound when it is put into the crowd to taste. 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 not to eat after eating if they pick up food for guests. They think that people have souls, ghosts and ghosts, and Xiaomi also has a soul. Therefore, when eating, the rice in the retort can't be filled, even if the stomach is not full, there should be some left. Otherwise, if the retort is empty, the soul of the valley will not come back and people will have no food to eat. Insect dishes Insect dishes, the biggest feature is fresh and fragrant. "Fried cicada", "wild bee kernel", "fried grasshopper", "scorpion climbing snow mountain" and "washing scorpion" have their own tastes. Scorpion soup is the most popular dish, and its taste is even more rare. 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 meat flavor. French diners especially like to eat fruit, saying that fruit is better than caviar.
The insect feast in Daixiang, Yunnan Province is well known and smells like insects. Stuffed cicada backs, fried bamboo worms, fried grasshoppers, mixed SINONOVACULA with sauce, mixed acid ant eggs, cold ground bee eggs, sweet wood worms and clear water silkworm pupa soup are all original insect-flavored dishes. The production technology of "cicada slough meat stuffing" is unique. 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 is a brown-black weevil larva, 5 cm long and 3 cm wide. It is crispy and delicious after frying in oil. "Mix crickets with sauce", remove wings and internal organs, chop them into meat sauce with a knife, and mix them with onions, Jiang Mo and pepper. 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 banquets. The sweet, tender, delicious, sour and refreshing "cold ground bee" is made by boiling young bees in boiling water until half-cooked, and then marinating them in hot and sour seasonings 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 more amorous feelings. Crispy and light boiled earthworms, fragrant fried osmanthus cicadas and fried banana maggots, sweet and salty bamboo tree insect pupae are 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. Stir-fried, mixed with salt and pepper, and chewed in your mouth. It tastes strange and smells like osmanthus. After swallowing, the teeth and cheeks still have fragrance. "Fried bamboo shoots and pupae" is also unusual. Bamboo shoot pupa is an insect that feeds on the tender bamboo in the bamboo forest. It's flat and fat, the size of a thumb, and it smells great 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 fry it with shredded ginger, which tastes like milk and cream. It is said that this product has nutritional and cosmetic effects. "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 banquet in Guangdong, Shandong's "fried scarab" cicada pupa and Han'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.