Charlotte LR Payne
Charlotte LR Payne
  • About
  • Research
    • Traditional entomophagy in Japan >
      • An overview
      • Wild foraging and food insecurity
      • Imported insects compensate for a decline in wild foraging
    • The ‘semi domestication’ of wasps for use as food in contemporary Japan >
      • What can we learn from insect 'semi-domestication'?
    • Public health and edible insects
    • Wild and semi-wild harvesting in Zimbabwe
    • Wild harvesting in DRC
    • Gender roles in insect foraging and management
    • Edible insects in San Antonio Etlatongo, Oaxaca, Mexico
  • Publications
  • Blog
  • 日本語

Impressions of a field assistant #2: Caterpillar collection (and cooking)!

7/29/2017

1 Comment

 
This post is written by Sioned Cox, a Part II Biological Anthropology student at the University of Cambridge who has been doing a fieldwork project on diets and nutrition here in Soumosso, Burkina Faso, as well as working as my field assistant.

Picture
Sioned and Friend
Village life here has the same sense of community I’m used to at home in the South Wales Valleys.  People are more important than time and efficiency is achieved from necessity.  Its worship becomes evident as a foreign, social construct.  There’s bliss in observing and learning about people without understanding a single word being spoken.  Gestures, intonations, garments and decorations burst with the ordinarily subconscious symbolism.  Behaviour is familiar and as predictable as at home but this commonality is as pervasive as is the exotic.

Rising at 3am to fill a bucket with squirming caterpillars by torchlight is as novel an experience as any.  Three hours later, bucket full to the brim with meaty caterpillars, local collector Ajita and I laugh together at my brownish, greenish hand, filthy from defensive caterpillar spit.  Ajita’s hand is  spotless.  It seems there’s a knack to the collection method and Ajita’s experience shows.  She brings me water and enacts scooping up the abrasive gravel to show me how to remove the harmless, stubborn stains.  We drink tea and enjoy her homemade cakes before the arduous preparation of the caterpillars begins.  

The caterpillars have to be washed three times before cooking, with specks of leaf and twigs painstakingly pinched away at each step.  We hunch over buckets of black water, surrounded by mounds of caterpillars:  my five kilograms, Ajita’s twelve and Charlotte and Momoni’s sixteen.  The cleaning process takes a further three hours and the sun is now strong enough to burn my skin.  Ajita’s baby, Alimatou, plays happy and curiously with the caterpillars, in between plenty of breaks for breastfeeding.  

Later that afternoon, with all thoughts of the caterpillars temporarily wiped from my mind by a welcome rest, I enter the kitchen to the most glorious smell.  With dozy excitement I wonder what we are having for lunch today and I’m greeted at the stove by a pan full of well-cooked, seasoned and relished caterpillars.  I enjoy them in some bread like a hotdog and relax after a satisfying day.
Picture
A caterpillar sandwich
1 Comment
Taylor
8/3/2020 10:37:33 am

But what do they taste like? How were they seasoned? Were they boiled and soft, or fried and crispy? I cannot find an English-language culinary review anywhere, you'll be a world first!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

      NEW: Subscribe here for email updates!

    Subscribe

    Categories

    All
    Agriculture
    Burkina Faso
    Caterpillars
    DRC
    Events
    Fieldwork
    Grasshoppers
    Japan
    Media
    Mexico
    Nutrition
    Publication
    Recipes
    Silkworm
    Southern Africa
    Termites
    UK
    Video/slideshow
    Wasps/hornets

    Tweets about @libertyruth

    Blog archives

    March 2019
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.