When pests get into the house, the old folks say don't kill them - now they've become a specialty delicacy at 40 yuan per jin

When I was little in the countryside, there weren't any toys back then. Whenever we had free time, we'd go into the yard and dig around in the soil for little insects to play with. We'd watch their daily life and see how they caught their food. That was the joy of our childhood. Today I'd like to introduce you to a common countryside insect - the mole cricket, which in our rural area we all call "lagouzi."

This mole cricket usually digs burrows underground to live in, and whenever it has time it crawls out of its burrow to move around. When we were little we could often see mole crickets, but you had to be very careful - as soon as a mole cricket gets into a crop field, it bites through the roots of the crops the farmers worked so hard to plant, making it a notorious major pest in the countryside. But the old folks used to say that a mole cricket entering the house means "wealth is coming," so you absolutely must not kill a mole cricket in the house. Of course, this is a superstitious saying, and you can't rely entirely on the mole crickets in your home to bring you financial luck - you still have to work hard steadily on your own.

When we were little, we often took a little bottle to catch mole crickets. Mole crickets were very common too - in less than an afternoon, we could catch a whole bottle of them. Back then, we'd also string the mole crickets we caught together with a thin thread and pull them around everywhere to play with them. Sometimes we kids would even compete to see who could catch the most mole crickets - it really brought endless childhood fun to us. In the end, we'd throw the mole crickets into the chicken coop, and after the hens ate them they laid especially large eggs, probably because mole crickets are so high in protein!

Now mole crickets have been put on the dining table too. Southerners especially remove the head, innards and wings of the mole cricket, wash them clean, coat them in batter and deep-fry them - crispy and refreshing, absolutely delicious. A plate of fried mole crickets like this costs around 40 yuan, making it a highly distinctive insect delicacy. This is a "dark cuisine" dish made from mole crickets, and many people love eating it now. Of course, some people say they can't accept it, but for foodies, the deliciousness of mole crickets is irresistible. When we were little in the countryside and there were plenty of mole crickets, people didn't eat them much. Now people's tastes have changed and they've started to love eating mole crickets, but now their numbers are getting fewer and fewer.

Now some farmers have started farming mole crickets artificially, just like grasshoppers are farmed artificially now. Besides satisfying people's appetite for mole crickets, they can also be blanched and dried to be used as medicinal material. The mole cricket is a traditional Chinese medicinal herb that promotes urination and relieves constipation, and in medicine it is often used to treat conditions such as edema and dribbling urination. This is the mole cricket that was so common in childhood, and now it has become a delicacy on people's dining tables. Have you ever eaten it?