Archaeology for Breakfast

We find Rick somewhere in the jungles of Mexico, pondering the great questions of the ancient world—like, “what was for breakfast?” Back in Chicago, he whips up a plate of Huevos Motuleños—Eggs Motul-Style, a heady, layered “short-stack” of Mexican breakfast favorites piled on a tortilla, including fried eggs, chorizo, cheese, peas, beans, plantains, cilantro and salsa. But instead of digging in, he decides to dig down a few layers, like a culinary archaeologist, and investigate just how Mexican—and just how ancient—these beloved ingredients are. That investigation takes him to a dairy stall in Mexico City’s cosmopolitan San Juan Market, a down-and-dirty pulqueria (a bar that serves pulque, a locally brewed “agave beer”), La Tequila restaurant (where we get a lesson in the ancient art of making salsa in a lava mortar called a molcajete), and a market stall that sells, among other delicacies of antiquity, edible bugs.