All We Heard Were Crickets

An orange-tinted shadow fell across my hands as I placed two pastel-colored conchas and a bouquet of orange and yellow marigolds onto the angel-guarded grave the size of a large doghouse.

It belonged my great, great second aunt and a tribe of cousins I’d never met. It was El Día de Los Muertos [The Day of the Dead] and my friend, Alex, and I had trekked down to Oaxaca from Puebla to find ourselves on the opposite side of a romance-confused outing. It was indeed romantic. Candles, cemeteries, sweet breads, flowers and each grave graced with intimate groups of loved ones. I swallowed my butterflies and followed the sentiments.

I bid farewell to my ancestors, and Alex and I walked out of the neighborhood of mausoleums and timeworn crosses and onto an old, recently paved road. It was a little past midnight, and we were staying at some Bed & Breakfast just outside of town. We wondered for about 40 minutes before we found ourselves in a corn field, on the promise of ‘it must just be just around the next corner’ – that is, until that corner turned into a road with no rights or lefts for at least two kilometers. A hot medley of tensioned and untold desires boiled. We looked at each other for an impossible amount of time but said nothing. All that could be heard between us were crickets.

Some cold words were released, and some insults were thrown…until we agreed that we should go back towards the crowded cemetery to ask for directions in heated frustration.

Then, almost out of the dark of night, an old blue pickup truck pulled up. An old man with a large black hat was driving, and in the passenger’s seat was a boy of about 17 covered in dirt and blisters, with shifty eyes.

After much apprehension we hopped into the back and breathed the road in as we scuttled along a much-too-long dirt road, until in the distance we saw the lights of our town, then we were passing the town with abandoned turns and its lights began to disappear in the distance. The driver took a sharp left and rushed us all into a corn field. The branches cut us as we tried to find our barrings. Then some words were whispered between the driver and the passenger. Something didn’t seem right. A door opened. Alex and I jumped from the truck and ran through the maze of corn.

Some many minutes later we came upon a small village – or more of a large compound of quaint, colorfully decorated houses with several courtyards. We were greeted by a curious woman with a large skirt and long, adorn braids. She ushered us into the adjacent house and invited us through a labyrinth of homes and inner courtyards until we came upon a dining room, and she lead us to a table of boisterous guests with a familial tone.

They invited us in, disregarded our queer accents and made us sit and eat before even thinking about how to solve our way of getting to our lodging.

In the corner of the kitchen, there stood at the firewood stove, a very old woman stirring a large pot of what we assumed was the regional, specialty - mole. She made us sit and drink several shots of mezcal, which were growing on me, and which were loosening Alex’s lips.

A few moments later, we began to hear chirping. But it was too earlier for the sun and its winged companions. The mezcal told us that it was a noisy clock.

After some rustling with a plastic bag and a mountain of garlic, the old woman pasted four fresh-made corn tortillas onto several red, clay plates, shoveled dark, thick masses onto the tacos, while her very tall son, Javier, sprinkled onions and cilantro onto them, and shoved it into our hands.

All the while, that sound was still chirping, clicking – no, was it singing? – in the background.

We both took a bite, excited to finally taste Oaxacan mole and found it to be savory and sweet, astringent, yet smoot, a bit gritty and salty – really something wonderful.

We ate till the button on my jeans began to pull.

“What’s this sauce made of?” asked Alex.

“What sauce?” answered a relative.

The old woman overheard our conversation and brought out a plastic bag with something moving inside. We leaned in.

“Chapulines,” whispered the old woman in a husky voice.

It was a bag full of live, brownish crickets, with a bit of hop left in them.

“Jiminy crickets,” I joked as I busted out laughing.

Alex didn’t find it amusing.

To be honest, I was secretly a bit disgusted, but also strangely satisfied. How could something so insectuous taste so good?

Then Alex kissed me. Finally, and passionately.

“Because its lucky, that’s why,” shot my mind as flashbacks from my four-year-old self transported me to a scene from Mulan.

Tacos with fried crickets and mole. It was nothing like I could have imagined, as I counted myself lucky to have gotten lost in Oaxaca.

I later came to find out that the world was adopting crickets as a more ecologically and economically minded protein source.

It’s true that good cuisine travels, but not quite like this. There are different cricket recipes and preparations the world over. This small, efficient, lucky, tasty, nutrient dense and ubiquitous ingredient grows like weeds – and lives among them – in just about every climate.

Getting them is becoming easier, as bags of cricket food products can be ordered online for the same price as a steak.

The best way to eat it is as a powder or ‘cricket meal,’ which I sometimes add to the actual masa [dough] of tortillas.

First, I dry fry the cricket meal for just a few minutes, then mix it with water, salt and corn flour. I let it sit so that the corn relaxes and becomes sticky and doughy. After about 15 minutes, I form the masa into small balls and place them between a set of wax paper and smash them into thin, round disks with a tortilla press. Lastly, I place the tortillas on the stove on a hot pan until warm and slightly crisp around the edges. Mole or just about any kind of combination of vegetables or meat can be added as desired for a protein rich meal.

Replacing livestock-rich diets with such a low-cost, environmentally sustainable meal, just may be the world's ticket to a more sustainable food syestem and a little luck in romance.