Mbugs in my sandwich

You don't want to play the weird foods game with me. Not now. You don't stand a chance. I traveled in Africa, I've seen some things.

Plates are always covered here, I guess it's probably either for suspense or to keep the bugs out. Opening your plate is a major event, because you never know what will be in there that you never thought to eat. Not because Ugandans eat weird food, but because they eat different food. As much as I think things I'm served are strange, the same goes the other way. Nutella is seen as bizarre and spicy food borderline dangerous. Our friend saw a package of pasta, and demanded an in-depth explanation of how, and why, we eat that bag of pointy ends. I'm now at the point, by the way, where I speak for my entire race as if its no big deal. I'll say "pasta is like matooke for white people." Meaning a major starch staple of our diet that's welcome anytime.

We went over to the house of the woman who's SACCO we are working with to help her pound g-nuts (like p-nuts) into butter. We're working away and she starts talking about how with the weather last night there were lots of ants flying around into the lights. Ok, sure. One thing you can always count on is weather and bugs.

Later she says that she made us lunch, another thing you can always count on is African hospitality. We go inside and there's no lights, because as per usual, the power is out. No problem, we can eat in the dark. We sit down and there's two plates on the table, covered as always. So I joke to Pat, cause I'm a funny guy and all: "God, I hope there's beans and rice under here. But will it actually be?" Haha, yea. I open it up to a delicious spread: bread with g-nut paste, avocado, pawpaw (papaya), and a mystery pile. There weren't any lights, so we couldn't be too sure, but it looked like a big pile of bugs. Oh, right ants. Roasted white ants is a delicacy around here. They're the big ones with the long wings that fly around all dumb at night. Big fellers, like the size of Mike and Ikes. Not just a few either, but like a USDA food pyramid serving of protein. As long as you didn't think about it, they were actually pretty tasty. Kind of nutty (Austin Powers) and crispitty-crunchity. I made a little sandwich. Clean Plate Club of course.

(Except ours were toasted)

Move over jelly, most-hated-peanutbutter has a new best friend.

Comments

  1. Damn. Doin it real insectuous over there.

    Pill, love the Camera 2 shot. You look so happy...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I take it this means the sequel to Pickle Pie is going to be dramatically more challenging?

    ReplyDelete

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