Eating toasted grasshoppers in parts of Mexico, a food once derided as only for poor people, is now celebrated as a delicacy by visiting tourists from the United States and elsewhere.
The change in perception of chapulines (from the Nahuatl term chapolin) shows how food and its meaning change through time, said Jeffrey H. Cohen, author of the new book "Eating Grasshoppers: Chapulines and the Women Who Sell Them."
In the book, Cohen, a professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University, explores chapulines and their role in culture, tradition and the survival of the Mexican people.
Cohen has spent years doing research in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where chapulines are a seasonal treat that appears with the start of the rainy season in May.
"For tourists, grasshoppers are seen as a delicacy, or a novelty. But for the local residents, it is just food," Cohen said.
"It has been a part of meals for thousands of years."
They are easy to prepare. The grasshoppers are dipped in boiling water, which turn them a deep red color. They are then placed on a cooking surface with garlic, lemon, chili and other seasonings and are ready to eat in a few minutes.
Grasshoppers have been a major source of protein for the local populations for centuries, but their status changed after the Spanish conquest, when new foods were introduced to the region.
"The Spanish thought of eating grasshoppers (saltamontes in Spanish) as absurd - not as something you would actually eat," Cohen said.
Still, Oaxacans continued to enjoy their chapulines.
And then in the 1920s and '30s, the Mexican government pushed a new food agenda, in which officials encouraged locals to eat what they considered "more modern nutritional foods," by replacing local favorites like tortillas with bread and chapulines with other kinds of protein, such as beef and pork.
While many Mexicans did incorporate other foods in their meals, eating grasshoppers never disappeared from the menu. They were readily available in the fields around their homes and less expensive than other food choices.
And collecting, preparing and selling chapulines was an important and often vital job for many women.
"The women who sell grasshoppers in local markets have become important breadwinners for their families, earning incomes that can exceed professionals in the cities," Cohen said.
During COVID-19, when markets closed down, chapulineras - the women who sell chapulines - found innovative ways to sell their grasshoppers. They created a touchless economy using WhatsApp and other messaging services to connect to customers, leaving purchased products outside their houses for pickup. Some also provided no-interest loans to people who could not afford their orders.
The meaning and value of chapulines has changed again recently, as Oaxaca has become a popular tourist destination.
"For many foodies and other tourists, tasting chapulines becomes a way to experience the past, to feel they are connected to a long exotic history," Cohen said.
Chapulineras have learned to cater to these tourists.
"These women know how to play to the foodies. They talk about the 3,000-year tradition and how it goes back to their ancestors who lived there," Cohen explained.
"And they also use more modern pitches. They emphasize nutrition and their high protein content. It really connects to the tourists."
As much as the women try to appeal to tourists, they also know that it is not how they make their living. The market is based on feeding the local residents, and not foodies who stop by for a taste of the past.
"The way the women described it to me was that if a tourist comes by and buys a bag of grasshoppers, that's great, but they are leaving, never to be seen again," he said.
"What I need to do is sell grasshoppers by the kilo to the people who live here, and if I don't do that, I'm not going to make enough money."
Cohen said as much as the culture and meaning around chapulines have changed over the centuries, their appeal has endured - and that is unlikely to change.
"It still amazes me how much chapulines remain a part of everyday life in Oaxaca and how incredibly important they are to the economy and to the culture of the area," he said.
