Southerners get a large part of their protein from aquatic products collectively known as fisheries.

Sima Qian's "Historical Records? Biography of Huozhi" said that people in the Chu and Yue lands in the south "eat rice and eat fish." This is true.

By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, due to the high development of the aquaculture industry in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, fish-based diets became more popular.

Among them, there are more than 10 types of fish-based grasshoppers, including catfish grasshoppers, sturgeon grasshoppers, purse grasshoppers, whitebait bream, and crab grasshoppers. The production process of fish grasshoppers is more refined than before.

For example, when making purse-stringed grasshoppers in the Taihu Lake area, they are often wrapped in lotus leaves from streams and ponds. They can be eaten within a few days. Compared with fish and grasshoppers in bottles, they have a better smell.

Pouch grasshoppers are not made directly by the lotus pond. Instead, the sturgeon is cut into slices and wrapped in layers of rice crumbs and lotus leaves. The locals call it pouch.

The raw materials used to make fish grasshoppers are mostly sturgeon.

This is mainly because the bones of sturgeon are crispy and the meat is tender, making it perfect for making bream.

During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the scholar Shen Chaochu recorded in "Remembering Jiangnan": "Suzhou is good, dense wax drags oily sturgeon bones and grasshoppers", praising the delicacy of fish and grasshoppers.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the popularity of fish delicacies in the south of the Yangtze River shows that the utilization of aquatic products reached a certain level during this period.

In particular, the publication of many related works has pushed the development and utilization of aquatic animals to a new historical height.