San Francisco is going to play quite a role in my coming book on the history of Mexican food in the United States–and that's all I'm going to say about that right now. But Baghdad by the Bay is in the Mexi-food news right now, because pendejo health inspectors have asked a Oaxacan eatery to stop selling grasshopper tacos.
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La Oaxaqueña is a relatively new restaurant in the Mission District, the epicenter of San Francisco's Latino food scene and the area which gifted the world the Mission burrito that Chipotle ripped off–but I'm digress. The place is the rage among the city's hipsters because it sells Oaxacan food, a relative rarity in a city where the main recent-immigrant Mexis are Yucatecos. They started earning notoriety in the hipster set for serving tacos de chapulines–grasshoppers–because, wow, eating grasshoppers is gross! But kudos to owner Harry Persaud for sourcing his chapulines from Oaxaca–and that's where the problem lies.
According to KGO-TV Channel 7's story, health officials ordered Persaud to stop selling them because they said the chapulines were not from an FDA-approved source–and they told them they know of no place that the FDA approves of that sells chapulines. Let's hope that's not true, because there'll be a lot of angry Oaxacans across California pulling a Benito Juarez on health inspectors.
In the meanwhile, SanFran officials: Get with the 21st century. Chapulines are healthy, chewy, and perfect on a taco.
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