Nobody Loves Me, Everybody Hates Me. I'm Going Away To Eat Worms

Worms: A Zimbabwe snack, from tree to dinner table

Published - Jan 24 2013 09:57AM CST

TSVANGIRAYI MUKWAZHI, Associated Press

(The Associated Press)

In this photo taken Monday Jan. 7, 2013, Mavis Nkomo places harvested mopane worms outside to dry, outside her home in Gwanda, Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe as well as most parts of southern Africa, mopane worms are a staple part of the diet in rural areas and are considered a delicacy in the cities. They can be eaten dry, as crunchy as potato chips, or cooked and drenched in sauce. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

GWANDA, Zimbabwe (AP) — In Zimbabwe as well as most parts of southern Africa, mopane worms are a staple part of the diet in rural areas and are considered a delicacy in the cities. They can be eaten dry, as crunchy as potato chips, or cooked and drenched in sauce. I decided to document the harvesting, preparation, sale and consumption of the worms, and found the preparation somewhat stomach-turning. But the worms can be mighty tasty and they're very nutritious. Here's everything you always wanted to know about mopane worms but were afraid to ask.

THE MOPANE WORM

The worm is the large caterpillar of the Gonimbrasia belina species, commonly called the emperor moth. It is known as a mopane worm because it is found chomping the leaves of mopane trees after it hatches in summer. It has also burrowed its way into literature, finding its way, for example, into the pages of Alexander McCall Smith's series about The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, set in neighboring Botswana. At least one of the characters munches on dried mopane worms.

THE HARVEST

After six weeks of rain, the mopane worms can be seen clinging to, and feeding on, the leaves of the mopane trees in rural Gwanda, an arid cattle-ranching area in southern Zimbabwe. Amanda Ncube normally fetches firewood to sell and looks after the family cattle, but when it's worm-harvesting season she joins other women and a few men in collecting the worms, which are as long as the width of two hands and as thick as a cigar. She slowly plucks them from the lower branches before climbing partway up the tree to shake off the higher ones. The more stubborn ones that cling to the leaves and branches are pried loose with a long stick. The worms excrete a brown liquid once they make contact with a human hand, leaving the pickers' hands wet and slippery. As they harvest the worms, the women and men move from one tree to another until their buckets are full. A thick slimy green fluid comes out as Ncube carefully squeezes out the entrails from a mopane worm she has just plucked from a tree. While some worms are prepared on site, other harvesters wait until they are back home where they squeeze out the entrails of the worms before leaving them to dry for a few days in the hot African sun. During harvest season, the porches of mud-walled homes are covered with thousands of worms, laid out to dry.

THE MARKET

At the local market, mopane worms are quite popular with residents who buy a cup or two of them and eat them immediately. The market is abuzz with activity, with most stalls strategically displaying the delicacy so people cannot miss them. Vendors offer free samples. The mopani worms are graded according to size and the area where they were harvested. Picky buyers ask about their provenance before buying, favoring worms from one district over another because, to the connoisseurs, worms from one area taste different from those from another.

HIGH PROTEIN

The mopane worm is a healthful and cheap source of nutrition.

A Zimbabwean nutritionist, Marlon Chidemo, says the worms are high in healthy nutrients and contain three times the amount of protein as beef. He says eating worms is less taxing on the environment than consuming beef because it takes far fewer leaves to produce worms than it does feed to produce the same amount of beef.

WORMY BUSINESS

Dried mopane worms have become a multimillion-dollar industry, even exported to countries like South Africa and Botswana. They can be found in African restaurants in Paris.