Flavours make a civilization

Today breakfast Mexican style. Deseyuno mexicano. Eggs scrambled with tomato, onion and a little chilli served with refried beans, a little Oaxaceña queso - mozerella like cheese. And of course tortilla. Yum.

Today was a day of cultural exploration. The Museo de Santa Domingo has a great collection of Zapotec (the major precolombian civilization of the area) artifacts. All the crazy looking faces on funeral jars and the ancient cooking tools - grinding stones, pots and bowls. I was made up to find a book on prehispanic culinary culture in the book store. A quote from the book "A civilization that ignores its flavours cannot be a complete civilization". Think there might be a lesson for the modern world in that.

I think I am leaning more towards wanting to find the ancient roots of this food culture. Thats where the healthier food resides. Before the spanish brought pork and beef to these lands insects provided much of the protein source.

Inspired by my recent attendance at the longeveity now conference in LA, I can see a revolution in the concept of insects as a source of protein. They are incredibly nutritious and a great source of B vitamins (espcially B12). One of the the deficiencies vegetarians and vegans cannot avoid and have to supplement.

Infact I´m going to coin a phrase right here. Bugarian. Vegetarians who eat bugs...

Anyway speaking of bugs. For dinner I had a salad of Napoles - prickly pear (never tried before), Chapulines - tiny grasshoppers (never tried before) with cheese and herb pesto. To be honest it was not my favourite meal... The chapulines were very salty and the napoles kind of too rich... better luck tomorrow.