Escamoles and Agave

I recently spent some time in Mexico City with the chance to explore. It has changed some since my last visit a few years ago; primarily its pollution level. The owners of our local business partner used to joke that I was his "canary in the mine". Whenever I got sick visiting it was a sure sign that the red air pollution warning would go up the next morning.


Nowadays the air is much cleaner, primarily due to the introduction of large buses to replace microbuses as part of the mass transit system. Mexico City is the second largest city in the world, after Tokyo, and has the traffic and air pollution that goes with it. Mass transit is the secret to solving some of their knottier problems.

While in Mexico this trip I have the chance to try new cuisine. Chapulines (sauteed grasshoppers), escamoles (ant eggs), goat and cactus fruit. The escamoles were excellent. The goat, cactus fruit and chapulines mediocre. I was surprised by the size of the escamoles. Sure enough, they come from some pretty big ants; the giant black Liometopum ant.


The Liometopum ant lives in the agave plant. I and an old friend learned about the agave on an excursion to Teotihuacan, Mexico. The agave is ubiquitous in Mexico, growing wild in rural areas. In Pre-Colombian Mexico it was cultivated and harvested on farms for use as paper, clothing and drink. The Mexica used it to make their own "beer", which the Spaniards perfected after their arrival in tequilla. The blue agave is used for tequilla.


Our visits to the Mexica (Aztec) and Teotihuacan sites in Mexico were stellar. Teotihuacan is the remains of a pre-Mexica culture which was actually discovered by the Mexica centuries after it was abandoned. The Mexica used what they found as the basis for some of their later religious practices; believing their creation myths took place there. They believed it to be an ancient city of the gods.

Today we know it was probably occupied from 200 BCE to the 7th-8th centuries by a fairly sophisticated culture which worshipped the Sun and Moon and viewed jaguars and the snake-dragon as symbols of power. Their city has enourmous pyramids to the Sun and Moon and images of jaguars and feathered serpents with jaguar features abound. It is believed to have been the dominant culture in South America during its time, including Mayan cultures as far south as present day Guatemala and Honduras.

We followed this visit with one to the Historic Center of Mexico City, which has both the Spanish Conquistador Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral and the remains of the Mexica Templ0 Mayor; the one being built on top of the other. The plaza is second only to Moscow's Red Square in size. The Spanish intentionally built the cathedral on the site of the sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan to co-opt the sanctity of the site for Catholicism and obliterate the Mexica shrines. Stone from the precinct was used to build the Cathedral. Outside the cathedral are crosses decorated with skulls and snakes. Whether intentional or not, this too co-opted Mexica religious symbology and the newly conquered peoples would bow down to the crucifix while paying homage to their old symbols.


The Templo Mayor is quite stunning. It was supposedly built on the site where the Mexica saw an eagle perched on a nopal cactus with a snake in its mouth; a sign to settle and build a city. The eagle with a snake are on the Mexican flag today. The Mexica built the pyramid's sides and top layer by layer. Built on an island in a lake, the whole city continued to sink into the ground over time so the additional building was necessary to maintain the pyramid's height. On it sat two shrines; one to the god of war Huitzilopochitli and the other to the much older god of rain and agriculture Tlaloc. Pictured below is the god of rain who sat atop the pyramid. He also appears at Teotihuacan.



Next to the pyramid is the House of the Eagle Warriors, which was a privileged military class dedicated to Huitzilopochitli. The House itself is built in the style of Teotihuacan. To become an Eagle Warrior one had to capture more than four enemies for sacrifice. The skulls of the sacrificed (estimated at 60,000 skulls) were displayed on a rack called a tzompantli.



Legend has it that warriors ascended to the heaven of Huitzioopochitli but could return as hummingbirds or butterflies. I am hoping on my next trip to Mexico to visit the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve at Michoacan and perhaps see some returning souls.