Northeast Chinese cuisine has a dish called fried silkworm pupae.
Tips
culture
蚕蛹 (cányǒng, silkworm pupae) is a classic snack in Northeast China and a byproduct of the silk industry — protein-rich, often deep-fried with chili and cumin. In Korean cuisine, the pupa snack 번데기 (beondegi) shares this tradition.
memory
Radical 虫 (insect) on the left + 甬 (yǒng, alleyway/bell-shaped) phonetic on the right. The 甬 also appears in 通 (tōng, to pass through) and 涌 (yǒng, to surge) — a useful phonetic pivot.
Insect on the left grounds 蛹 in the bug family — silkworms, butterflies and moths all pass through a pupal stage. The radical groups it with 蝶, 蛾 and 蜂, marking 蛹 as the dormant larva-to-adult transition phase.
Provides the sound yǒng unchanged. It heads a phonetic series including 桶 bucket, 通 pass-through and 涌 surge. The bell-handle meaning is unrelated, though a pupa's smooth, segmented casing does resemble a small bronze ornament — a useful mnemonic.
