With the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, many businesses have been launching unique flavors of mooncakes to seize the market. Surprisingly, a food company in Shandong has introduced “Cricket Mooncakes.”
According to a report from Shandong Radio and Television’s “Lightning News,” the food company in Tancheng, Linyi, Shandong, has created Cricket Mooncakes by washing and drying artificially bred crickets, grinding them into powder, and mixing them with traditional five-nut fillings (including almonds, walnuts, black sesame, etc.).
In addition to Cricket Mooncakes, a mooncake production enterprise in Qingdao, Shandong has also introduced bean and pork mooncakes. Moreover, Taiyuan in Shanxi has launched specialty vinegar mooncakes, Shaanxi has oil-splashed spicy pepper and gourd chicken mooncakes, Henan has hot and sour soup mooncakes, Changsha has crayfish mooncakes, Sichuan has chilled rabbit and lantern shadow beef mooncakes, as well as fermented tofu mooncakes, stinky tofu mooncakes, challenging consumers’ tastes.
Netizens have expressed mixed reactions, with some saying, “Purely natural dark cuisine,” “Don’t let it out, just sell within Shandong province,” “Can’t eat this year’s mooncakes,” “Nowadays, even dogs walk away without looking back after smelling the mooncakes,” “Next step: develop cockroach mooncakes,” “This used to only appear in post-apocalyptic novels. How did it become a reality?” “This world has finally gone mad.”
In response to this, a prominent Weibo user, “v-v Jade Key,” pointed out, “Mooncakes, as traditional delicacies, carry people’s beautiful expectations and emotional memories of festivals. The excessive pursuit of strange flavors may cause mooncakes to lose their original charm. When companies innovate, they should respect traditions, cater to people’s real needs, and introduce novel and tasty products, in this way they can establish a solid presence in the market, allowing mooncake culture to be better inherited and developed.”