Eating insects in Japan included dragonflies, a tradition that surprises researchers
Japanese woman recalls plucking dragonflies out of the air and eating them in her days in junior school ‘because they are gods’
Research has shed light on a previously little-known insect-eating tradition in parts of the Tohoku region in Japan’s northeast, where dragonflies have been consumed as both delicacies and for medicinal purposes.
Shuji Watanabe, a senior curator at the Iwate Prefectural Museum, compiled a field report that describes how dragonflies have long been eaten by people living in parts of Iwate and Akita prefectures.
Hirosaki University associate professor Ryohei Sugahara, an expert in human entomophagy, or the eating of insects, called Watanabe’s report “intriguing, as eating adult dragonflies is rare”.
One woman in her seventies, born and raised in the village of Kunohe in Iwate prefecture, recalled her days in junior school when she ate dragonflies a few times with friends.
“I was told that dragonflies were good for my health because they are gods,” she said.
“When we would play near the mountains or rivers after school, we caught dragonflies and ate them like that after pulling off their wings. There was nothing odd about it because we were eating wild edible fruits like chocolate vines, and freshwater crabs, too.”
