Mooncakes filled with cricket Photo: Screenshot from media reports

Every Mid-Autumn Festival brings a wave of creative mooncakes with novel flavors. A food company in Linyi, East China's Shandong Province, launched mooncakes filled with ground cricket during this year's festival, Guangming Daily reported recently.

These cricket mooncakes use farm-raised crickets that are dried, ground into powder, and blended with mixed nuts and black sesame for the filling, the report said. 

It is said that the recipe "doubles the nutrition and aroma," with tasters saying, "You're missing out if you haven't tasted these," according to the Guangming Daily report.

One netizen joked, "People in south China's Guangdong Province could make mooncakes with cockroach filling."

Besides mooncakes stuffed with crickets, locals in Shandong have also created mooncakes with green-bean and minced-meat fillings. A Qingdao-based mooncake manufacturer launched mooncakes filled with minced meat and green beans, Guangming Daily reported.

A reviewer described them as "chewy," saying that "it reminds me of the savory zongzi, a traditional Chinese food to mark the Dragon Boat Festival."

In Taiyuan, North China's Shanxi Province, a mooncake workshop launched vinegar-flavored mooncakes, which adds vinegar to the syrup-based filling, said the report. Additionally, provinces including Northwest China's Shaanxi, Central China's Henan and Hunan, as well as Southwest China's Sichuan have unveiled fillings made from local specialty ingredients, according to the report.

Traditional Chinese medicine shops have also released "health-preserving" mooncakes, featuring fillings such as Chinese yam with poria, hawthorn with dried tangerine peel, and wolfberry and mulberry.

Yu Xiao, deputy chief physician of the second department of spleen and stomach diseases at Longhua Hospital Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said that the number of patients due to issues like bloating, indigestion, and stomach pain always increases significantly around the Mid-Autumn Festival, reminding the public to consume mooncakes in moderation.


Global Times