Ants for breakfast

Tart and tangy, the wee Camponotus consobrinus gives me a lesson in world culture.

By Gary Presley

March 7, 2002 | I ate ants for breakfast last week.

We rise before daybreak in our home, and my wife is off to work. We embrace, kiss and she drives away. The noise of the alarm, the chatter of doors and drawers give way to silence, to time to read, to think and to be alone in the predawn stillness. The world turns quiet, and I am free to start the day on my own terms.

I find a book and settle down to a simple breakfast of tea and dry cereal. I like best the neat little shredded wheat biscuits. I don't like milk, and so I dip handfuls from the box as I page my book.

Shredded wheat comes in a variety of forms. I prefer the plain, but last week I found only one box left in the cupboard, and that was a box of the type "with honey and almonds baked in." My wife has a sweet tooth.

That explains the ants, but it doesn't explain why I ate them.

Actually, it doesn't completely explain the ants. Spring and fall, our house suffers an invasion of sugar ants, tiny fellows perhaps an eighth of an inch long. My wife murmurs about the efficiency of pesticides. I refuse to listen. I'd rather put up with ants temporarily than spray chemicals indiscriminately.

And so it came to pass that I scooped out a handful of cereal "with honey and almonds baked in" and ate an indefinite number of ants. Admittedly, I was distracted by my book, and I didn't look carefully as I lifted the cereal into my mouth, and so my decision to add meat to my breakfast was accidental.

I stopped in midbite. Ants, I thought immediately. I've eaten ants.

I had noticed earlier a parade of ants along the baseboard, and, since ants are hedonists and would head for dessert first, I knew my wife's cereal with "honey and almonds baked in" would be a likely destination. And, of course, the fact that I tasted something other than cereal, or even honey and almonds, was the final clue.

You could call the taste bitter, but you wouldn't be quite right. Add tangy, and you'd be closer. The flavor was sharp, woodsy, but it lacked texture. Of course you wouldn't expect texture. Ants are minuscule, after all. Certainly not big enough to crackle as you bite down on them.

I didn't gag or spit out the ant-and-cereal mixture. There is a sense of people-aren't-watching freedom at that time of morning. I find myself open to possibilities, willing to accept a different rhythm for the day to come.

I thrust my hand into the box, grabbed more cereal and carried it quickly to my mouth. There again, the taste. Tart, wild. Once more into the box, for something never before on my tongue.

I pushed back the lid and looked into the box. I could see dozens of tiny creatures rushing about in panic. I picked out a single piece of cereal and checked it carefully for signs of wildlife. Cereal, nothing but cereal, and so I ate it, slowly, savoring the sensation. And the taste was pure, sweet grain, with no perception of the raw, wild aftertaste lingering on the tongue.

I once was squeamish, nearly obsessive, about the cleanliness of what I ate. I have become less so over the years, but now I wondered if that trait had disappeared entirely.

Amused at myself, I thrust a finger into the box and watched as an ant jumped aboard. He was nearly black, tending toward maroon rather than sable, and his antennae moved constantly as he wandered down from my fingertip.

I have eaten a living, breathing creature, I thought, hair, hide and hindquarters. I turned my hand and looked directly at his microscopic head, rotating about in apparent confusion at being kidnapped from his tribe.

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