Diet/ Food/ Southern African Food/ Travel

Mopani Worms

Madora/Amacimbi

2014-01-02 17.08.52

If you have ever heard that there are really wierd foods in Africa like worms, flies and rats… well… it is true.

These are known as Mopane worms in English, widely known as just “phane” in Botswana. These are not actually worms but protein rich caterpillars that flourish on mopane trees. They are normally harvested, squeezed and sun dried and provide a form of food security. They are then eaten as a snack or soaked to rehydrate then grilled or stewed. They are highly nutritious. A little bit of research has led me to find some eat them freshly harvested off the trees. If this isn’t enough to make you squeamish, why don’t you go ahead and contact My Burnt Orange, who can arrange for you to have this gastro naturo experience right here in London.

You Might Also Like

4 Comments

  • Reply
    kimemiamaina
    May 29, 2014 at 9:35 am

    A friend of mine was asking me if they eat worms anywhere…

    • Reply
      MyBurntOrange
      May 30, 2014 at 9:15 pm

      Hi there! Yes indeed these are a delicacy in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia. They are actually caterpillars rather than worms.

  • Reply
    Mictos catering
    June 30, 2014 at 6:24 pm

    We have it in Nigeria also and is called muni-muni, is found in a special type of tree. Its mostly use in melon and vegetable soup (osiki/efo elegusi)

  • Reply
    MatseCooks
    February 4, 2015 at 5:31 am

    We have some edible maggots in Nigeria. We call the Odon. Verry tasty 😉 especially when eaten with what we call kpokpo garri. Nice blog.

  • Leave a Reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    %d bloggers like this: