Fact. Uganda has some bizarre foods.
You can watch Andrew
Zimmern navigate the Pearl and some of its strange tastes in these episode
clips.
Fact. I have consumed some bizarre foods myself
since being here.
The first being
grasshoppers, which in my opinion taste like buttered popcorn. They are seasonal and tend to make an
appearance at t
he onset of dry season. Street
vendors carry them live, without their wings, in plastic bags.
Hundreds of them, squished
together, waiting for the inevitable.
Once you have you plastic
bag of grasshoppers, you take them home and fry them over the fire. No oil needed. These guys release their own copious amounts,
which seals in the flavor.
And these guys are a hot
commodity. People go crazy, saving 7,000
shillings, 2.80USD, for a tasty bagful.
Then there is anyere,
which primarily exist in the North. Anyere
is rat. A very large rat, like the size
of a full-grown, 10-year old cat, rat.
Now I have yet to taste
one but a fellow Volunteer in Kitgum was able to pick one up, which we will
consume sometime soon. The one she has
has been cleaned, gutted and smoked. To
prepare it you essentially let it soak in a traditional soup for three hours to
take in the flavor.
What I did eat the other
night was oyoo.
Also known as small
rats.
The locals will typically
ask you which oyoo you are eating.
“Eh! The ones from the garden?”
“The ones from the creek?”
Truth be told, I have no idea where ours came from. All I know is I like
seeing these guys dead rather than creeping around town.
I was over at Ellen’s
house with her boyfriend, Denish (pronounced Denis) and Mark when she said; “I
have a surprise dessert for you!”
I thought maybe it was
popcorn.
Mark’s prediction was New
York style cheesecake topped with strawberries.
We were both wrong.
Out came Ellen with oyoo.
Despite our far off
predictions, we were excited to try the smoked rat. Ellen and Denish picked off the meat while
giving the teeth, bones and kidneys to the cat.
It tasted very much like
smoked trout and immediately brought me back to summer days sitting by the
campfire at Pinecrest. As Ellen and
Denish picked clean the remaining rats, Mark and I continued to munch on the
white meat while her neighbor Fatima looked at us with disgust. She was not interested in tasting but got a
kick out of the fact that the munus were eating oyoo.
Prior to our dessert, we
had guineafowl. What looks like a large
chicken, small turkey, this insect and seed-eating, ground-nesting birds
was slaughtered for just hours before we ate it. It tasted very much like chicken except the
meat was black.
Fun fact.
Apparently guineafowls are native to Africa but are now being
domesticated around the world.
Oh and their feathers... Beautiful!
Still on my bucket list of bizarre foods include crocodile,
ostrich, impala, springbok and kudu. To
taste these wild game meats I will have to head to Kampala to The Lawns. The restaurant farm raises its game meat and
does not hunt from the parks, which unfortunately is done throughout the country.
I have a sneaking suspicion they will all taste like
chicken…
