Uganda Read This!: Buggy Burgers

Living in a place where produce is dependent on the season and supermarkets are seldom stocked, you have to be innovative with your recipes.

Henceforth the white ant burger experiment.

This time of year you can find these little, dried insects in giant rice sacks spread throughout the market amongst your everyday tomatoes, onions, and bulbs of garlic. As my friends navigated the stalls, I cleaned up at home and prepared for the bizarre feast we were about to have.

As we minced garlic, diced onions, and rinsed chickpeas, Ellen grinded the white ants with a traditional wooden mortar and pestle. Once all the veggies were prepared, we mixed everything in a bowl with an egg and some breadcrumbs to help hold the odd mixture together. We toasted bread, fried eggs, and sliced some peppers as the patties sizzled on the stovetop and soon we were assembling burgers like we were at In-n-Out.

Except we weren’t at In-n-Out and the burgers definitely didn’t have the taste of the west coast burger joint.

I am not going to lie though… They weren’t half bad.

Until about halfway through my burger when I was staring into the eyes of those insects. It was incredibly gritty and not even the mustard or ketchup could mask the texture.

I quickly lost my appetite and decided to sweep the remnants of ants out of my house while I admired my friends as they continued to eat.

I challenge Andrew Zimmern to this meal to see if he can stomach the somehow tasty treat.