Dishes made from crickets are very common in today's life. Particularly, when there are studies pointing out that food made from insects also has many nutritional values. Accordingly, in the cricket's protein composition, there is an amino acid that cannot be replaced such as cysteine and methionine... while the chitin content of adult crickets accounted for 8.7%, with better quality than shrimp and crab. Therefore, dishes from crickets are very popular in some countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, etc.
In Can Tho, cuisine from crickets is also being put on the menu by local people on Son islet to serve tourists. Accordingly, the crickets used as food here are quite special, which are crickets fed by molasses from sugarcane. Crickets are raised following an organic model, using food from vegetable leaves, such as sweet potato leaves, cassava leaves, papaya leaves, water spinach, and especially sugar cane leaves. All vegetables and grass for crickets must be washed, no pesticides and hygienic. Crickets before being made into dishes will be separated for a few days, in the meantime they will only be fed sugarcane (the root part) to store nutrients and sweet molasses. After that, one day before processing, crickets will be soaked in dilute salt and pumpkin ingredients to cleanse their intestines. Ms. Le Thi My Luong (also known as Nam Minh), owner of Thanh Dat fruit garden, shared: “After going through many stages of preliminary processing, crickets are cleaned and become raw materials for gardeners to prepare familiar dishes such as cricket salad, cricket pancakes, cricket Khot cake,... Using crickets as a dish so that we pay great attention to hygiene and food safety, so the stages of feeding and processing are very carefully".
Crickets fed by sugarcane are fragrant, fatty, and rich in nutrients. Food combining crickets with folk cakes also gives visitors new experiences and challenges their courage. These are dishes that evoke childhood memories for many people, as well as help visitors have interesting experiences on the journey to learn the culture of the Southwest.
Source: Can Tho News - Translated by Hoang Dat