The Tostada de Chapulin at Corazon de Maguey restaurant, Mexico City
By Annelise Kelly
Mexican cuisine is a creative, ever-evolving culinary experience. Pre-Hispanic ingredients like corn, tomatoes and peppers have welcomed old-world produce like onions and garlic over the five centuries since European explorers first set foot in the Western hemisphere.
Some Mexican restaurants are coming full circle, embracing a deeply traditional ingredient that has seldom appeared on plates in the United States — edible insects. The custom of eating insects has been retained throughout the 31 states of Mexico, as well as in Asia and Africa. It may be that Europe has no tradition of eating insects because its cooler climate limits options.
Today, the thought of eating insects is rather exotic (at best) for most American diners. However, with more Mexican restaurants experimenting with bugs on the menu, diners now have a chance to explore why these enduring indigenous delicacies are embraced by so many.
The Western world is also beginning to recognize their value. Insects offer high nutrition, low environmental im- pact, and a nutrient-dense profile, which makes them an ideal food source. With a growing global population and the need for sustainable protein sources in the future, edible insects are a potential solution to attain global food security.
Here’s background on this so-old-it’s- new-again ingredient, along with the wisdom of a few chefs who are helping popularize the consumption of the crawling and flying critters popping up on restaurant menus.
WHAT ARE EDIBLE INSECTS?
We’re using “insects” as shorthand for the various invertebrates that end up in the skillet and on the plate. The invertebrate category includes all animals that don’t have an internal skeleton, so it includes plenty of creatures that are well established in North American and European gastronomy, such as shrimp, lobster, oysters and squid.
In other words, many people who shrink from eating terrestrial invertebrates consider aquatic invertebrates to be delicacies.
Technically insects have six legs— think grasshoppers, crickets and ants, some of the most popular edible bugs. There are also plenty of non-insect invertebrates that have a traditional place in the Mexican kitchen — mealworms, caterpillars, scorpions and tarantulas to name a few. Chapulines (grasshoppers); escamoles (ant larvae); jumiles (stink bugs); ahuatle (water-fly eggs); gusanos de maguey (agave worms); and chinicuiles (red maguey worms) are among the most commonly eaten insects in Mexico.
BUGS DESERVE MORE THAN A MOMENT
The options for adding insects to menus is almost limitless, says Chef Joseph Yoon, a Brooklyn-based, self- proclaimed Edible Insect Ambassador who launched Brooklyn Bugs in 2017 with the idea of trying to normalize edible insects. According to Yoon, there are 500 to 600 species of edible insects in Oaxaca alone. And as far as Yoon is concerned, those edible insects deserve more than a moment. They deserve a movement.
As Yoon points out, edible insects “have incredibly different flavor profiles and textures and functionality. The possibilities gastronomically are just so tremendous....I would encourage Latino chefs, Latina chefs, to embrace” the tradition of cooking with insects “and really to amplify it. I think there’s something really empowering and beautiful about doing that.
“Food is such a big cultural and status symbol,” Yoon observes. “If you tell me what you eat, I can tell you so much about who you are. And right now, a lot of the cultural norms for Americans and for Europeans are that insects are not a type of food, so that’s also among our challenges. But historically in Mexico and Latin America, they’ve been eating insects for millennia and we’ve actually been eating insects since the beginning of human evolution. I think it’s so important in our education and outreach to recognize the dignity in this food and not to make it seem like this is some apocalyptic food source at the end of the world or for poor countries.”
He was motivated and inspired by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization report on the topic. “What we found is that this idea of eating insects really sparks people’s curiosity. And once we’re able to capture some- one’s curiosity, we have a short window of time to hold onto that.”
INSECT-INCLUSIVE MENUS
At Chicatana in Washington DC, chef/co-owner Marcelino Zamudio has noticed increased curiosity and courage on the part of his customers when it comes to eating insects. From 2009 to 2014, he worked for Chef José Andrés at Oyamel Cocina Mexicana, where he says many people were scared to try the chapulines taco. “Right now, I’m still working with him. A lot more people buy those tacos [now],” reports Zamudio, who says many of these adventurous diners are encouraged when they learn the protein content of chapulines or ants compares to that of steak.
Zamudio wants to show customers there’s more to Mexi- can food than rice and beans and burritos. “People need to learn more about the Mexican food. That’s why I offer ants at Chicatana.” The Washington Post reviewed Chicatana in late March 2023 and dedicated a paragraph to the ants and grass- hoppers on the menu. Ever since, “a lot of people come to ask me, ‘Hey, can you show me your ants? I want to try them,’ or ‘Can you explain why you eat them in your state?’”
Zamudio uses insects for both flavor and texture. “The ant is very crunchy. That’s why you put it on the esquites,” he ex- plains. The insects he uses are toasted dry on the comal when they’re fresh, so they are shelf stable. His mother collects and toasts ants for him in Mexico, and he can also source ants from Masienda, a distributor of heirloom Mexican ingredients.
The Chapulines Taco at Hugo's, Houston
Insects have also flown onto the menu at Hugo’s in Houston, Texas, where executive chef/co-owner Hugo Ortega offers a very popular appetizer with chapulines.
“We lightly sauté them with onions and serve them with guacamole, salsa de tomatillo, and chipotle sauce with blue corn tortillas,” Ortega says. “It’s very popular for many reasons. Some people know it’s a wonderful source of protein. And [chapulines] are very flavorful. We import them from Oaxaca, and they come seasoned to us, with local peppers, salt, and so on.”
Chapulines might be the gateway bug your guests are waiting for. “You can sauté them, or you can toast them on the stove. Toasted, they are just delicious like popcorn,” Ortega says. “You can make chapulines salt to rim a glass, you can cook them with eggs for breakfast, and so on. However, my absolutely favorite are the chapulines that grow on sesame seed fields. Those are considered a delicacy — they don’t make it here because locals love them. When you toast them, you release the oils and minerals and you have a wonderful flavor of sesame seed.”
Yes, insects have terroir.
Chicatanas also appear in Hugo’s dishes. “The locals collect them around the time of the first rains in the spring, when they hatch. We make mole with chicatanas, and we serve it with beef or fish. We make adobos with them, and you can make salt with them,” Ortega says. “They are a truly wonderful source of food and protein. The ant colonies are passed from generation through generation. People know where the ants nest and keep it very secret. They cook it with a little bit of butter and onions and make taquitos, serve it with guacamole. And it’s considered a delicacy” with a “very beefy” flavor.
“I don’t have any doubt, since eating insects has happened since pre-Hispanic times, that at some point or other we will catch up and it will probably be the food of the future,” he speculates. “I think people are always curious to experiment with these things. And there are foodies and there are people who believe in how healthy they are. It definitely will catch up eventually.”
Ortega advises chefs who want to serve insects “to tell the customers that they’re going to be fine after trying it. Experiment: make some sauces, serve them for breakfast, incorporate them in different cooking applications and I would say be brave, right? Combine them with different peppers, different herbs, different condiments. Play around with these flavors. They are so unique.”
Take a page from the playbook of La Diabla Pozole y Mezcal. The Denver, Colorado, restaurant recently offered a short-term special platter for their Festival de Bichos (Festival of Bugs). The sample platter of four bichos included crickets, ants, ant larvae, and worms, each individually prepared. Their Instagram post went viral, attracting national press.
Maybe bichos’ moment has come.