Saturday, May 5, 2007

I tried it!!

One of the delicacies in Uganda is a flying ant (termite) that comes out in swarms. When they come out everyone goes around and collects them. They are about an inch long and after they have flown out of there hill they loose their wings. After being collected they are put in the oven or grilled with onions and then eaten. It is something that happens twice a year and everyone gets very excited. A small swarm of them came out last week, and the kids went crazy trying to collect them all. I was asking one of the families a question about them as they were collecting and Tendo walks up to me and hands me a handful of them. They were crawling everywhere! Ugandans also get a swarm of grasshoppers and they enjoy eating these as well. There is an area in Kampala where they attract them with lights and then it makes for easy collection. Well Stu (one of the Rafiki Overseas Staff) likes the grasshoppers and so he got a batch of them today. They take off the wings but when you get them they are still moving around. He then baked them with a little salt added. He brought them out to the soccer game today for the mamas to all have one. I had said that I would rather try one of those as opposed to the ants. SO I DID! It had the eyes and everything; it was very crunchy and salty. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but not something that I would want to eat a lot of. At least now I can say that I tried it! So kangaroo in New Zealand and grasshoppers in Africa!!!!!