What Escamoles means
Escamoles is a Mexican ingredient name of Nahuatl origin meaning "ant larvae". It is built from azcatl (ant) and mōlli (sauce, dish) and Spanish -es (plural). It is pronounced es-kah-MOH-les, and it is most associated with central Mexico.
From azcamolli, ant dish. They are gathered from the nests of the escamolera ant at the roots of maguey; the nickname insect caviar is modern marketing, not a translation.
Escamoles is one of the many Mexican food words formed in Nahuatl. Spanish borrowed it, and in several cases English borrowed it again from Spanish. See how Nahuatl builds words and the full list of Mexican food names.
This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: The words that appear inside dish names: the chiles (ancho, guajillo, pasilla, chipotle), the corn words (nixtamal, masa, tortilla, elote), and the tools (comal, molcajete, metate). Learn these and most menu items decode themselves.
