African Delicacy: The Mopane Worm

Beautiful, spiky and full of protein

For those of you who will be travelling to Southern Africa, I advice that you try to get your hands on some mopane worms to get a real taste of Africa. The most common place to find them is at local markets…just watch your wallet!

The Emperor Moth

The mopane worms are the larvae stage of the Emperor Moth, an enormous, hand-size,velvety, brownish moth that mainly flies around at night. The moth only has a lifespan of a few days (4-5), long enough to make sure that enough eggs are produced to keep a big part of the Southern African population happy once the eggs start to hedge. The eggs are deposited on the underside of the butterfly-shaped leaves of the mopane tree, which are instantly devoured once the worms come out.

The Mopane Worm

Once hedged after the leaves have started to become green, the worms eat with an incredible ferocity and within a couple of days even the biggest mopane tree can be turned into a living skeleton, making the worms fat and juicy. Competing for food, hundreds if not thousands of worms crawl over each other, all searching for the juicier leaves towards the end of the branches. Sitting under a mopane tree, one can literally hear them munching away.
They worms themselves are beautiful. Their yellow, greenish and blue bodies are lined with black rows of spikes and black, super strong, feet. Picking the worms is something to get used to as the little feet start to hold onto a branch like an octopus on a diver’s arm and the spikes give a tingling sensation when being touched. The worms are edible and provide an important food source for birds and people. The worms that won’t get eaten will dig themselves into the soil, where they, depending on circumstances, will emerge between one to seven month later as fully grown moths.

Preparation

Rule number one: empty the body by squeezing out the juices from the worm. Don’t worry, by the time you buy the worms from the market this has already be done for you…haha!

The most common thing that will happen to the squeezed worms is that they get dried and end up in a bucket on the market from which they get sold. You can eat the dried worm without a problem. Although the taste is not bad (a mix between vacuum cleaner dust and a peanut) the dry texture can be unpleasant for some. Another way of preparing them is by soaking them in water and later stir-fry them with oil and some garlic.
I had my cleaning lady picking them one day. She took them home, returned 30 min. later and I had them also with oil and garlic, but not dried. I am not kidding you, they tasted delicious.

Next time you are in Africa and it is worm-season. Go for it and give it a try. Let me know what you think!