We drove up to Thoyoyandu in north Limpopo the area where the Venda people live. Always wanted to see the sight in the northern part of Kruger. This place is beautiful, rustic and full of fruit orchards. The best avocados come from here and the citrus farms are loaded with fruit. So cheap that you could fill the back seat with bags and bags for 1/3 of what you would buy the same stuff for anywhere else. Well, true to form, my buddy and I went looking for the braai shop (barbecue place in South Africa) for lunch and lo and behold we were on the money behind the veggie market. The braai shop attached to the butchery was everything we needed and after a hearty lunch of boerewors, chops and pap (Mealie meal) we were all set. It had been a long drive up from Huntington way down in Mpumalanga where we live, right by the Paul Kruger gate.
The thing was that on the way back to the car we walked by the market on the inside and that’s when we saw it. Baskets and bowls full of bugs!! Being sold like beans or peas or anything else. Mopani worms are the caterpillars of the mopani moth that feed on … you got it… the mopani leaves. These are really fat caterpillars and apparently taste real good. Local people add them to meat stews to increase the flavor. The next bowl was termites, all dried and ready to fry and eat. These are about 80% fat and everyone said they taste like butter when fried. I took their word for that. The next bowl was little beetles that look for all the world, like leaves. Wow! I did not know that they are edible and what’s more, who was out catching like hundreds of these guys. I mean there were baskets and baskets full of these little fellas. Well, we just had a great lunch so we just walked on out of there but that was truly something to see.
