Eighteen Monsters of Yunnan, three grasshoppers in one dish.

The custom of eating bugs has been practiced in Yunnan for hundreds of years.

Why is there a custom of eating insects in Yunnan?

There are many kinds of animals in Yunnan. Yunnan is China's plant kingdom. Because Yunnan is located in the northern part of the tropics, and the terrain is very different and complex. There are mountains as high as more than 5,000 meters and tropical valleys as low as more than 80 meters. Therefore, the climate is very different.

The complexity makes Yunnan have a wide variety of flora and fauna, making it the kingdom of flora and fauna in China.

Insects have high nutritional value. In the eyes of many people, the strange appearance of insects is frightening to people, let alone eating them. But in fact, insects have extremely high nutritional value.

The essential amino acids, vitamins, minerals, etc. needed by the human body can be well supplemented by insects, so it is not surprising that the price is high.

Therefore, as long as you are not frightened by the appearance of insects, eating insects is still a good delicacy. Many tourists who come to Yunnan every year come with the mentality of trying new things.

Insect dishes in Yunnan: Fried centipedes? Fried flower spiders? Fried mole crickets. The insect dishes in Yunnan basically belong to the southern Dai cuisine.

Although Lijiang, located in northwest Yunnan, also eats bugs, as a local chef said, this is the result of learning after seeing residents on the China-Thailand border deep-fried water cockroaches and bamboo worms in recent years.

The Han people in Kunming rarely eat insects.

In fact, the Dai people in Yunnan are not the only ones who eat insects.

From southwest China to Thailand and Cambodia, people everywhere have their own traditions of eating insects.

The Gelao people in Guizhou, the Zhuang people in Donglan County, Guangxi, and the Hani people in Xinping County, Yunnan, all hold their own "Insect Eating Festivals", including fried locusts, pickled sour grasshoppers, sweet fried butterfly pupae, aphid rice loaches, and fried ants.

Grasshoppers and others gathered at the dining table.

Yunnan is a multi-ethnic region with large and high mountains.

There are no rich economic resources, but these rare mountain insects are the only ones around us, so humans capture these insects as food and snacks. The taste is not bad, and it is a very popular delicacy.

Insects are not ordinary common vegetables, they are not easy to come by, and of course the price cannot be cheap.