puxi

See also: Puxi and Pǔxī

English

Etymology

From a Native American language.

Noun

puxi pl (plural only)

1. The edible larvae of various flies of the genus Ephydra, found in the alkaline lakes of western North America.
   • 1904, “Curious Foods”, in Pacific Medical Journal, volume 47, page 691:

     The most singular food, in all probability, is that larvæ of a fly, common in certain portions of California and known as Ephydra. […] Not only the eggs, but the larvæ, themselves a disagreeable-looking worm, are used as food under the name of puxi.

   • 1957, Edward Smith Deevey, Limnologic Studies in Middle America: With a Chapter on Aztec Limnology:

     The "larvae", furthermore, are said to be eaten as puxi, so that the miraculous corixids are eaten in four different forms under as many names.

   • 2008, Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Northwestern Valley of Mexico: The Zumpango Region, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan:

     They also gather aquatic insect eggs (ahuautle), brine flies (puxi), and algae (cuculito).