Toasted Grasshoppers, A Favorite Of Seattle Mariners Fans, On Offer At MLB FoodFest Nicole Rasul Nicole Rasul Contributor Food & Drink I write about the makers and shakers in our food system.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolerasul/2019/04/26/toasted-grasshoppers-a-favorite-of-seattle-mariners-fans-on-offer-at-mlb-foodfest/#65d1958564bc

Toasted Grasshoppers, A Favorite Of Seattle Mariners Fans, On Offer At MLB FoodFest

Nicole Rasul

Contributor

Food & DrinkI write about the makers and shakers in our food system.

Chapulines, or toasted grasshoppers, at Seattle's T-Mobile Park.

 SEATTLE MARINERS

The 2019 MLB FoodFest kicks off today in Los Angeles. A three-day event now in its second year, the gathering is a showcase of concession stand highlights from all 30 Major League Baseball parks in the country. This year, the experience is slated to also hit New York City and London.

A unique menu offering sure to excite festival-goers are toasted grasshoppers, or chapulines, from Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, home of the Mariners baseball team. Centerplate, the stadium’s hospitality partner, began offering the dish in 2017 and the grasshoppers quickly became a runaway hit and viral media sensation.

Steve Dominguez, general manager for Centerplate at T-Mobile Park, told me in a recent interview that the grasshoppers landed on the menu as part of the company’s quest to add outstanding options from restaurants in the region to the stadium’s food and beverage offerings. He calls the dish an “authentic Oaxacan experience,” referencing the Mexican state where the bugs are both sourced from and where they have a long culinary tradition.

Launched at a stand in the ballpark featuring Mexican cuisine from Poquitos, a popular Seattle restaurant where the chapulines have been a longstanding menu item, they were originally sold for $4 for 4 ounces, or roughly 40 bugs, and served in a chili-lime salt seasoning.

The stadium quickly sold out of the item during the first three games of the 2017 season. “It just took off. We couldn’t keep them on our shelves,” Dominguez says about the edible insects.

For the remainder of the 2017 season, only 312 orders of the dish were offered for sale at each game, a number representative of the career batting average for Mariners great Edgar Martinez, as Centerplate ironed out supply chain issues to acquire more of the product.

By the end of that year, 1.6 million bugs had been sold. In 2018, the dish remained popular with just under 1.2 million chapulines purchased by stadium attendees over the course of the season, according to Dominguez. This year, the grasshoppers are offered at $5 for a 4-ounce serving.

Dominguez says that thus far the price increase hasn’t hurt sales, which now occur at multiple spots in the stadium. “They’re still flying off the shelf,” Dominguez says about the chapulines. “It’s early, but I think we’ll match sales from previous years. Garlic fries and grasshoppers, to the chagrin of our chefs, are the items that people are interested in right now.”

In Oaxaca, grasshoppers have been consumed for centuries and have a long history as snack food at sporting events. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says that globally, two billion people routinely eat insects, an excellent source of protein, as a standard part of their diets.

In fact, the organization notes that edible insects have positive environmental, health and livelihood benefits for the global population and point to their consumption as a possible solution for achieving food security for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Back in Seattle, the restaurant-quality food and beverage program at T-Mobile Park has been recognized as one of the best in the business. Driven by a range of locally-inspired menu options crafted in consultation with some of the best food minds in the region, including James Beard Award-winning chefs, the chapulines were a home-run attempt at adding creative authenticity to a space usually dominated by hot dogs and soft pretzels.

As reported last year by Eater, the food in America’s baseball stadiums is increasingly growing up. Fans expect to not only be wowed by their favorite players on the field but to have outstanding food and beverage options with concession stands showcasing dishes representative of a region’s top dining concepts and chefs.

“They [the chapulines] really are a testament to the calculated efforts of Centerplate and the Mariners to bring different flavors to the ballpark each and every season,” Paul Pettas, Centerplate’s communications director, says about T-Mobile Park's offerings. “It's part of the trend of baseball games, and sporting events in general, becoming havens for fans and foodies alike.”

I am a freelance writer covering food and agriculture. Follow me on Twitter @rasulwrites and read my work at nicolerasul.com.