We were eating dinner at a restaurant on Plaza Don Vasco de Quiroga in Pátzcuaro. Scanning the menu, I asked the waiter what Charales con salsa de chile de arbol y guacamole was. "Little dried fish," he told me.

Seizing on yet another opportunity to gross Jean out, I ordered them.

They were everything I'd hoped they'd be: Heads intact, little black eyes staring out, full of crunchy bones and very stinky.

As a kid, I wouldn't have gone near these things. Actually back then, I wouldn't even go near broccoli. Today, I try to expand my culinary horizons.

Charales are farmed in the lagoons of Michoacán—a local delicacy. Dried, salted and fried, you wrap some in a tortilla and add salsa to taste. Then it's crunch, crunch.

I saw similar tiny dried fish in markets in Tokyo. There I was told that a tablespoon of them would supply the daily calcium requirement. Well, all right, then.