“It tastes like calamari,” says four-year-old Oliver Engelhorn, popping a bee pupa into his mouth, and chewing happily before reaching for another of the golden cocoons stacked high on a plate in front of him.
It’s 7pm on a Thursday and the People of Yunnan Restaurant in San Po Kong is buzzing with guests, many of them regulars. The eatery blends seamlessly into a quiet street in the industrialised district of New Kowloon, but what makes it stand out from the crowd is what’s on the menu – an array of creepy-crawlies including silkworm, bee and cicada pupae, wasp larvae, bamboo worms and grasshoppers.
Insects are a traditional food source in Yunnan, a province in southwestern China with the largest number of ethnic minority groups in the country, making its cuisine a rich cultural mix of flavours – mostly spicy, with mushrooms included in many dishes.
Read Kylie Knott’s article in the South China Morning Post