eat worms

well, I didn’t quite finish the bag :-)

They were BBQ flavored! yum yum. ;) You just have to get past the “OMG IT’S A WORM!!” thing. It’s really not that bad if you just DO IT and don’t think about it.

Well it was a team goal and you gotta do what you gotta do. (can you tell I’m also working on my ‘merican?)

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Guess I’ll go eat worms,
Long, thin, slimy ones; Short, fat, juicy ones,
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy wuzzy worms.

Down goes the first one, down goes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
Up comes the first one, up comes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.

I am a vegetarian, and when someone asks me whether I eat fish, I can now say “no. only worms.”

I first heard about mopane worms when visiting the parliament of Namibia last year. During a budget debate one of the delegates thew her hands up and said something in Oshiwambo. There was a lot of laughter and she was told to use the official language English. Apparently she she had said the proposal of another delegate was so outrageous he might as well be putting a tax on mopane worms. They then discussed different dishes. Apart from beeing impressed by how relaxed and fun the debate was, I decided to give the worms a try, if I ever got the chance.
A few days later I went to a restaurant with an American guy I met traveling, that had them on the menu. We tried to order some mopane worms but were quite relieved that they weren’t in season.

I got my chance in Zambia. They had some dried ones at a market. I am not sure you do eat them dried (the woman selling them seemed confused by my request to try some). The black ones were vile but the greyish ones were edible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonimbrasia_belina#Eating
http://www.travel.za.net/mopane-worms.html

I ate deep fried tree worms in China. they were so good, I had three helpings! I also tried silk worm on a skewer… not good. This may have been the biggest gag reflex that any food item has ever elicited from me!