A joke about famine in the 1960s.

In ancient times, countless people were starved to death by locusts. Why don't people dare to satisfy their hunger with locusts?

In fact, there is no superstition, nor is it because there is no oil to fry locusts, and people will eat anything if they are vicious. When I was a child, 70 years ago, I saw fried grasshoppers in Tianjin, which was very fragrant.

The real reason is that when a large group of locusts arrived, it was a bad day to cover the sun. There were crows and crows called for dozens of minutes. Even the chickens that love locusts are scared all over the floor. When they meet a big river, the locusts automatically roll into a big iron pot and cross the river by buoyancy. The river is full of blue locusts.

Crossing the border is extremely fast. In one day, the bare land is thousands of miles away, and there are not many locusts afterwards.

At that time, it was a small family without any warning. Suddenly, they came and left, and the crops were gone. People are still in shock and have no time to reflect that the locust plague has formed and the locusts have disappeared.

People can't catch locusts, which is the main reason why they can't eat them.

After liberation, with the development of science and technology, some methods to eliminate locusts began to appear, such as digging ditches, burying and burning. Now use drones to warn, and send a large number of chickens and ducks to eat from the beginning of larvae. When there is a locust plague, pesticides can be sprayed by plane, so there has been no large-scale locust plague since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

"Locust" is what we usually call "grasshopper". This kind of flying insect likes to live in groups and dry weather.

Locusts like to lay eggs in dry mud, and locusts have strong reproductive ability. In this way, whenever there is a drought, there will be a plague of locusts, which is often called "ten droughts and nine locusts"

Because there were many droughts in ancient times, few natural enemies of locusts and no effective spraying of pesticides, there were many locust disasters in ancient times.

Locusts came in droves, devouring the crops of the people, and nothing grew in the path, thus causing a large number of hungry people.

Ordinary people have nothing to eat, so they have to chew the bark and eat Guanyin soil, even easily.

So someone asked, there were so many locusts in ancient times, why didn't people blow them up? Needless to say, eating fried locusts is really a good idea. According to scientific research, the protein content of fried locusts is as high as 55.8%, and its nutritional content exceeds that of other meats. This is definitely a delicious dish.

Now many restaurants or food stalls have this dish. Since there are many benefits, why didn't ancient people eat locusts?

Speaking of this problem, it is actually a matter of people's ideas and thoughts. It is in recent years that people really eat locusts.

People have never thought about eating locusts from their hearts before, just as most people dare not eat snakes, it stems from an inner fear and cognition.

Another reason why the ancients didn't eat locusts was that locusts migrated quickly and didn't stay in one place all the time. Even if they can eat them in a disaster year, they can't eat them for several days.

It should be said that Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, was the first person to eat locusts. One year, there was a locust plague, and Li Shimin gave a political performance in the back garden of his palace. He ate a locust in front of civil and military officials. He said that locusts eat people's food and I eat locusts. This is tit for tat, blood out.

At that time, the civil and military ministers were frightened and knelt down together and said, "Your Majesty, don't eat locusts, it's bad for your health."

Officially speaking, eating locusts is harmful and useless, so people naturally dare not eat them.

In addition, there were locusts in ancient times. From the emperor to the ordinary people, they all think that this is a "god worm" sent by heaven to punish the world. That's because human beings are not doing well enough, and it's a warning from heaven. How dare ordinary people eat "God Bug"?

Of course, this is a stupid understanding.

Because there is no precedent for eating locusts, I dare not be the person who eats crabs. It's like when tomatoes were first introduced to China, most people thought tomatoes were inedible. Aren't tomatoes very popular now?

Eating fried locusts is a matter of recent years, and it is a precedent set by southerners.

Even now, I think some people have psychological barriers to eating fried grasshoppers.

Another reason why the ancients did not eat locusts was that there were not so many fried locusts in the past. In other words, people can't eat grasshoppers raw without so many cooking techniques now, right?

In the famine years, eating Guanyin soil and chewing bark was an inertial cognition, that is to say, there was no sense of disobedience, but eating grasshoppers became a substitute.

Some things develop with the development of society, and we can't do it overnight, let alone look at the ancients from a modern perspective. Maybe in the future, people can eat more and more things.

Text/candle reading spring and autumn

In ancient times, when there were locusts, it was really because many people starved to death, but the reason was not because they didn't eat locusts at all:

First, the horror of locusts is that they will never harvest. When the locust plague happened, it happened to be the time when the crops were young. Locusts flew around and ate all the green leaves you could see, whether crops, grass leaves or leaves.

This season, it must be gone. Don't think about it. We can only wait for next season. All of a sudden, there is no worry in spring and summer, but there will be no food for six months in autumn and winter. What should we do?

Second, there was a locust plague, and local organizations organized people to kill locusts. However, there are too many unbearable locusts, and they can fly. In fact, in ancient times, the effect of killing locusts was really average, and all the locusts killed were eaten by people.

However, locusts cannot be preserved for a long time; Second, the locusts that were shot down, people flew over the border, and eating for a few days was not enough.

Want to eat, no, what should I do?

Think about it, locusts fly ten to several hundred meters high and fly one or two hundred kilometers a day. How much can you eat your food and grass across the border? Enough for a few days.

Third, after the locusts crossed the border, they began to replant, and they could only plant some crops that grew fast but didn't harvest much. Generally speaking, people's grain storage and locust plague occur in spring, and they eat in autumn at most, and harvest in autumn, which is just right. However, after being eaten by locusts, this autumn harvest may be hopeless.

After autumn and winter, spring came and the ground was hungry. In spring, there are no leaves. What can you eat without eating bark?

In the spring after the locust plague, a large number of people fled famine or died of hunger and cold, and could not wait for the spring flowers to bloom.

Eat! Why dare not eat? You are too hungry to eat anything!

It's just that with so many locusts, where can we eat them all the year round?

What's more, locusts also eat "meat". As long as it can satisfy hunger, locusts are not enough!

However, locusts are seasonal pests and come and go in a hurry. Eating locusts can't starve people to death!

In the era of locust plague, the ancients ate anything as long as they were hungry. It's just that the diet is different from modern times. It doesn't have that much oil and water and doesn't fry locusts. At most, it is made of dog tail grass and cooked in the fire.

Locusts are called grasshoppers. Friends who grew up in the countryside like me should know that they are not ugly pests.

When I was a child, I often heard my grandmother talk about the famine in the past 1958-60U, especially when many children starved to death. My grandmother took her young uncles to dig up the roots of weeds to satisfy their hunger, and put some roots or weeds in a basin of clear water. It was a very bitter day.

Anyone with common sense knows that swarms of locusts will soon eat up the crops and then move to the next place, which is very fast.

Although the ancients knew that after the plague of locusts, crops would be reduced or the grain would not be harvested. But it is obviously impossible to catch many locusts in such a short time to ensure that they will not starve to death in the future, but there is no way to stop them. We can only watch locusts destroy crops.

In ancient times, people didn't have the conditions to store food, so they couldn't desperately catch grasshoppers to eat during the locust plague. What should we do after dinner?

Moreover, locusts are highly mobile and migrate while eating. It is unrealistic to catch enough locusts to maintain food and clothing. Even if eating locusts can solve the temporary hunger, how can you live without food in the next year?

Moreover, the farming methods of the ancients were relatively backward, and the grain output of cultivated land was generally not high. But where locusts patronize, what should we do if crops are gone? In order to eliminate locusts, the ancients also used many methods, and eating locusts was one of them. According to the Book of Old Tang Dynasty, in the summer of the first year of Zhenyuan, locusts were rampant in Guanzhong, and refugees caught locusts and steamed them. In the autumn of the first year of Xingyuan, there was a drought in Guanfu and the crops were eaten up. People also caught it, steamed it and burned it to save food.

China was a self-sufficient agricultural society in ancient times, and the development of agriculture was limited by the weather. In ancient times, the ancients were most afraid of encountering three major disasters, namely drought, flood and locust plague. Once one of the three disasters occurs, it will inevitably bring great influence to agricultural production. Take the locust plague as an example.

A locust does not pose any threat, even a child can be easily killed, but if swarms of locusts gather together, it will be a disaster. The so-called locusts crossing the border, nothing grows. Swarms of locusts can devour all edible plants, and crops are naturally born to die.

Once the crops are destroyed, there may be no crops, which will make farmers lose their food sources and cause widespread famine. Grasshoppers can be eaten, such as the eighteen eccentrics in Yunnan, one of which is "grasshopper as a snack", and the grasshopper here is what we often say.

Then, there was a plague of locusts in ancient times, and countless people starved to death. Why do people eat bark instead of locusts?

First, the subconscious. In the eyes of the ancients, locusts were gods sent by heaven to punish the monarch and could not be eaten. Moreover, when locusts plague, locusts appear in groups, and locusts are everywhere. At this time, people are afraid to catch locusts. Even the courageous people are often eaten by swarms of locusts because they can't catch much because of their poor tools. Therefore, the ancients subconsciously thought that locusts could not be eaten.

Second, I don't know how to eat. Now the most common way to eat locusts is to fry them, and then sprinkle them with sesame oil, pepper and so on. This is a very delicious dish. But for the ancients, especially ordinary people, oil is a luxury, and you can't eat it several times a year, let alone "waste" such precious things on locusts. And if you don't use oil, sesame oil, pepper and other seasonings, the locust food made in this way will be difficult to eat, or even not at all.

Third, locusts can't be a staple food. There are many people who eat insects now, but almost no one lives on locusts. In ancient times, even if people had advanced locust-catching artifacts and mastered many cooking methods about locusts, they could only eat locusts for a few days at most. In ancient times, locusts mainly occurred in summer and autumn, and locusts destroyed crops. There are at least a few months from the destruction of crops to the next spring. It was impossible for the ancients to catch locusts every day in these months, let alone eat locusts every day.

You know, locusts stay in one place for a few days at most, and then go to the next place, so people can only solve the problem of food and clothing in a short time. Over time, the locusts left, the grain disappeared and the crops disappeared. At this time, I only chew bark. When the bark is chewed, famine occurs, which is followed by social unrest. Thus, the plague of locusts was devastating to ancient times.

In a word, the ancients didn't want to eat locusts, but they couldn't catch them and didn't know how to eat them, let alone eat them every day. At this time, many people had to chew the bark and eat Guanyin soil in order to survive, and even starved countless people.

The plague of locusts has been recorded in history. In ancient times, the serious consequences of locust plague, the confusion of its causes, the rapid coming and going, and the ineffective governance made people talk about locusts. This is a natural phenomenon. Because people know nothing, they often add unnatural factors and are full of superstition. They think the locust god is punishing mankind. It's just that when they pray trembling, they dare not offend, let alone eat! When the locust plague caused serious floods, there was almost no harvest in the higher places;

When there is a drought, there are basically harvests in places that are slightly depressed.

The plague of locusts is different. No matter how high the mountain is or how low the valley is, all crops, including leaves, will be swept away wherever they go. Therefore, after the locust plague, people did not even eat leaves, but only ate bark, and the consequences were very serious.

Second, the reasons are confusing. In the past, science was not developed, and people knew little about the causes of locust plague. They don't know the conditions of locust eggs hatching, and they need to be in a dry environment with humidity less than 50%. Therefore, faced with the plague of locusts once every few years or even decades, people can't understand why so many locusts were born at once and overlapped with the drought. It seems that the gods punish ordinary people, and naturally they are attached to divine power, and fear arises. For example, this year's locust plague in Africa, at its worst, formed a locust belt more than 60 kilometers long and 30 kilometers wide in eastern Africa, and some people in the local countryside thought it was caused by divine power.

Third, a single locust has a limited appetite. Hundreds of millions of locusts appear at the same time, and the food they eat is an amazing astronomical figure. Crops, grass and even leaves in a place are limited, so locusts need to change places constantly, or they will starve to death. Therefore, the locust army came and went in a hurry.

I heard from an old man in my hometown that one year there was a locust plague, and it seemed that a dark cloud was floating in the western horizon, and people were preparing rain-proof equipment. When they came to the front, people realized that there had been a plague of locusts. They can only watch the locusts eat up all the edible crops and leaves, and want to cry. There is nothing they can do!

Four. There was no scientific means to eliminate locusts before the governance was weak. Relying solely on manpower is tantamount to a drop in the bucket, and governance is difficult to achieve results, which further encourages theism. Since it is divine power, human beings are certainly no match, so how dare they eat locusts, locusts, locusts? I won't eat you as long as you don't eat me!

With the development of science and technology, human beings have mastered the technology of eliminating locusts, so only in some underdeveloped areas will locust plagues occur from time to time, while in developed countries and regions, it is basically difficult to form a climate of locust plagues, and the general trend of locust plagues has passed! In ancient times, when people were hungry, they even ate bark. They shouldn't be picky about food and don't eat locusts. But locusts are too fast to stay in one place for a long time. People have limited tools and can't catch much in a short time. Even if you catch some, it will be difficult to keep them for a long time.

In fact, locusts taste good. I forgot which city I was in when I traveled before. There is a scenic spot with fried locusts, but I dare not try.

Later, I remembered that it seemed that my sister gave it to me and some friends gave it to me, and it had been blown up. At that time, I was very resistant and didn't plan to eat. But according to my sister, a catty of locusts can sell for 50 to 60 yuan. I thought it was twice as expensive as beef, and I had to eat it whether it was delicious or not.

It turned out to be really delicious, and it tasted a bit like meat. There is a little smell of cicada pupa, and I can also eat a little taste of foie gras, although I have never eaten foie gras.

But it is said that fresh locusts smell better when fried. Everything I've eaten is frozen, a little skin, not crisp at all. It is also said from the internet that locusts have high nutritional value and good taste, so they were not eaten in ancient times, but they could not be caught when they were really hungry in disaster years.

Looking at history now, we can see that in ancient times, if there was a plague of locusts, it was often accompanied by people's misery and hunger, and what's more, there was cruel behavior of changing children to eat. When the locust plague came, all the green edible things on the ground were eaten up by locusts. At that time, farmers without crops had to eat grass roots and bark left by locusts to satisfy their hunger.

Whenever we think of such a picture, apart from feeling chilling, there are also some questions and problems that we can't figure out. That is: locusts are nutritious insects. Since we have eaten farmers' crops, why don't farmers catch locusts and eat them to fill their stomachs?

Anyway, this thing is not poisonous and can't kill people. This stuff is not only non-toxic and won't kill people, but also has really good nutritional value and taste. While quietly watching fish in his hometown in the country, he once ate delicious locusts that grandpa caught and fried. Wow, that smell, that smell, that's great, it's memorable!

I want to wash the locusts and roll them in the oil pan, so that the surface is golden and the inside is crisp and tender. Then I prepare some seasoning, add pepper and cumin powder to the seasoning, then dip a fried locust in the seasoning with chopsticks, and then slowly put it in my mouth. Just thinking about this picture makes me hungry and want to eat.

In addition, please chew slowly when you eat, which will help you to taste the locust carefully, and don't swallow it in one gulp like Pig Bajie eats ginseng fruit.

Ahem, don't think too much, get to the point.

Why didn't ancient farmers dare to satisfy their hunger with locusts? There are two reasons. First, whether we were in ancient China or not in China, people at that time didn't know enough about natural disasters, and they always classified what they didn't understand as mysticism.

For example, when the plague of locusts appeared, it was generally believed that the ruling class (we in ancient China generally thought it was the emperor) made a major mistake and angered God, so the areas and people under the rule of the ruling class were punished by God. Under such understanding, how dare people satisfy their hunger with locusts?

Second, when the plague of locusts comes, they are often overwhelming, wrapped in a big ball inside and outside, falling from the sky like a yellow cloud and eating everything that can be seen. In this case, how dare farmers catch locusts to eat? They are very lucky to be able to hide in their own houses or underground and not be eaten by locusts.

In ancient times, unlike today, we could kill locusts by various methods, such as spraying fire, spraying drugs, netting, eating ducks and eating people. After the disaster, they had no choice but to wait for the national rescue. Therefore, reading through history, we should be grateful for the times we live in. If we go to the ancient world to survive, we may not survive the first 15 minutes of the first episode. In people's eyes, fried locusts are still delicious, and some people even specialize in raising locusts in order to eat such delicious things. So since people can eat locusts, why didn't ancient people eat locusts?

In fact, in ancient official books, locusts were a kind of pest, because they ate farmers' crops and caused large-scale famine. Therefore, in ancient people's understanding, locusts are harmful, and eating locusts is also harmful to their own health. So in the mainstream social consciousness, locusts can't be eaten, which is actually like westerners don't eat animal viscera, chicken feet and so on.

In fact, eating locusts in ancient times was actually equivalent to being the first person to eat crabs, because people were suspicious or even afraid of a recognized harmful thing, so people would not eat it unless they wanted to survive.

Besides, there is only one reason why people don't eat locusts. Generally, locusts don't stay in one place for a long time, because locusts can eat up nearby crops and grain in a short time. When the grain is finished, locusts naturally fly away.

This is a question without common sense of life. Only after the plague of locusts, food crops failed to harvest, leading to famine, not before the plague of locusts. Besides, the locust plague covered the sky, and at the same time it passed quickly, and it flew away before it was cleaned up. To tell the truth, it's good for you to eat a few fried grasshoppers now and then. If you really want to eat grasshoppers, you can't eat any more. After all, it's not food, besides frying, there are grasshoppers.