There's
probably some Zen in a pan of frying crickets, but I have no interest in
looking for it. My interest in a pan of frying crickets is not
getting popped in the eye by a drop of boiling olive oil. Eating the
crickets once they've been cooked, all the way through the guts to
kill the tapeworm larvae, is also on the list. That's pretty much it.
The main Zen deficiency of a pan of frying crickets is that they don't
chirp. Sizzling, popping and whistling like chitinous little teapots is a
poor substitute for chirping. The sizzle, the pop, and the whistle are produced by phase changes in the stuff that crickets are made of, but these changes occur without any deliberate participation by the crickets themselves. Chirping is different. Chirping rate is a neuromuscular response to the
cricket's physical environment. A male cricket chirps faster when the air is
warmer. This change is probably not a very deliberate act on the cricket's
part--it's a function of poikilotherm physiology--but the act of chirping itself directly affects cricket reproduction. It attracts female crickets and warns away
competing males. A popping, sizzling, whistling cricket in boiling oil
does none of these things.
So where is the Zen in a pan of frying crickets?
I don't know. If forced to look more deeply into that skillet, I might
say we need need not assign meaning to every whistle and pop we hear,
nor to every drop of hot oil that stings our eye, in order to appreciate
the connection between the change we impose and the change we
experience. But that would probably be a bunch of crap. I suggest you
consult Steinbeck or Huell Howser, because I have no answers for you.
© Pseudocognitive
Apologies for the out-of-focus picture. It's the only original one I had, having lost the others.
Rio Vista, California is the home of an establishment I've placed on my list of “Shoot a rat with a .38, then say ‘Notify PETA’ in a sardonic tone” places. It's also on my list of “This contradicts my wildlife management opinions, but it’s so danged cool that I will allow myself a bit of self-serving hypocrisy” spots. The newest and biggest of the bar and grill’s silent inhabitants (a bull elephant, not pictured here because I was too busy eating my robustly satisfying medium-rare New York strip steakwich) was acquired in 1951. Lot’s of ‘em date back to the 30′s. There’s just something about chowing down under those watchful dead heads. Everywhere you look, there they are. In the long bar and in each of the dining rooms. Want fries with that glassy-eyed stare?
Find them at Foster’s Bighorn on Main Street in Rio Vista, the little city that may have served as partial inspiration for the town of Charming in Kurt Sutter‘s Sons of Anarchy. Go there. And visit Gemma T's drive-in (less than a mile away) while you’re at it.
© Pseudocognitive
