Four minutes to read.
Some tourists get a rush from climbing mountains, or deep-sea diving, or spelunking. My adrenalin pumps when I’m munching the local fast-food. Done properly, travel is fattening.
Until the day she died, my wife watched over my diet with a dissatisfied eye—not quite to the level of nagging, but never a resounding endorsement either. My kids carry on her crusade. “Dad, you are what you eat.”
Apparently, my destiny is hopping about in a grassy field. I am in Oaxaca, Mexico, snacking on the local delicacy, grasshoppers.
Besides savoring the local mole sauces, mezcal and chocolate, I like chapulines—sautéed grasshoppers cooked in sizzling garlic oil. Chapulines are often served on a corn tortilla with guacamole, pipiàn sauce and lime juice. I eat mine straight.
I am not alone in the world when it comes to enjoying grasshoppers. The Chinese, Indonesians and Ugandans also dine on them. Ohlone Native-Americans ate them. John the Baptist coated them with honey.
Chapulines are addictive. Like popcorn or pretzels, a bag of chapulines disappears too quickly. If I don’t pace myself, I can devour an entire bag in no time at all.
Rosita’s aquas frescas stand serves horchata de arroz—a sweetened, iced drink made with milk, pulverized rice and cinnamon. On a hot afternoon, a glass pairs perfectly with chapulines.
I buy my fresh chapulines at Mercado Benito Juárez, the town’s hard-working covered market. Everyone here is busy. Busy selling. Busy shopping. Busy being busy.
The first thing I notice is not the pungent smell of spices, or the silvery fragrance of fresh fish, or the jazzy textile colors, or the screeching laughter of children darting between fruit stands. Not the chickens under foot or the mangy dogs prowling for scraps. The bustling commotion feels like my high school between class periods. Chaotic. Communal.
Skipping past the butchers, fishmongers, shoe salesmen, toy sellers and shaman herbalists, I locate the chapulines salesladies. They are seated, elbow-to-elbow, surrounded by wicker baskets brimming with muddy red grasshoppers. Each woman sells fresh-cooked, free-range grasshoppers of identical quality. No separate branding, no price competition.
Merchants cluster by merchandise type for the same reason fraternities, sororities, book clubs, cancer survivors and model railroaders group together. Strength in numbers. Community solidarity.
Grasshoppers hang out in communities called clouds. When a grasshopper population is large enough to swarm, humans call them locusts. What the grasshoppers call humans milling at the market, I don’t know.
250 million years ago, mariachi-like male grasshoppers rubbing their legs together started wooing their ladies with songs. Ever since, grasshoppers en masse have produced a high-pitched humming—a kind of community choir. The result is a social cohesion akin to what I feel attending a Springsteen concert or the Superbowl.
At the high school where I teach, there’s always a solitary student or two sitting alone in the cafeteria. Perhaps an introvert, like me. A lone traveler in a mercado—in the community but not confidently belonging to it.
Sightseeing the streets of Oaxaca, chapulines and horchata in hand, my legs rub together as I walk. I don’t produce a noticeable sound. Nothing beyond chomping my crunchy chapulines.