San Francisco Health Officials Ban Restaurant from Selling Grasshopper Tacos

Flickr user christine zenino

​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.

​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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