Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
Chapulines
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Some tourists get a rush from climbing mountains, or deep-sea diving, or spelunking. Munching on local fast-foods and exotic delicacies is what pumps my adrenalin. 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.”
I am in Oaxaca, Mexico, snacking on grasshoppers. If my kids are right, my destiny is hopping wildly in a grassy field.
In addition to savoring Oaxacan mole sauces, mezcal and chocolate, I’m into chapulines—sautéed grasshoppers cooked in sizzling garlic oil. Chapulines are typically served on a corn tortilla with guacamole, pipiàn sauce and lime juice, but I eat mine straight, clean, fresh.
Rosita’s aquas frescas juice stand serves horchata de arroz—a sweetened, iced drink made with milk, pulverized rice and cinnamon. On a hot afternoon, a glass of horchata pairs perfectly with chapulines.
When it comes to enjoying grasshoppers, I am not alone in the world. The Chinese, Indonesians and Ugandans also dine on them. Ohlone Native-Americans ate them. John the Baptist, in between baptizing, coated them with honey.
Chapulines are addictive. Like popcorn or pretzels, a bag of chapulines disappears quickly. If I don’t pace myself, I can devour shopping-sized bag of them on the short walk from the public market to my hotel.
I buy fresh chapulines at Mercado Benito Juárez, the town’s hard-working covered market. Everyone here is busy. Busy selling. Busy shopping. Busy as a herd of grasshoppers hopping.
The first thing I notice is not the pungent smell of spices, the silvery fragrance of fresh fish, the jazzy textile colors or the screeching laughter of children darting between fruit stands. Not the chickens under foot nor the mangy dogs prowling for scraps. Instead, the bustling commotion reminds me of my high school homeroom before I call it to order: chaotic and communal, almost clean-cut.
Skipping past the butchers, fishmongers, shoe salesmen, toy sellers and shaman herbalists, I find the chapulines salesladies. They are seated on tiny stools, 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.
The market’s merchants cluster by merchandise type for the same reason fraternities, sororities, book clubs, cancer survivors and model railroaders group together. Strength in numbers. Solidarity.
Grasshoppers hang out in communities called clouds. When a grasshopper population is large enough to swarm, humans call them locusts. What grasshoppers call humans milling every which way in the town square, that I don’t know.
250 million years ago, mariachi-like male grasshoppers rubbed their legs together to woo their ladies with song. Ever since, grasshoppers en masse have produced a high-pitched humming—a kind of community choir. The result is a social cohesion akin to attending a Springsteen concert or the Superbowl.
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 noisily chomping my crunchy chapulines.
No women take note of me.
