Congo’s protein-packed delicacy : NPR
A seller holds major Wevil larvae at the Gambela market in Kinshasa. On the Gambela market, people can find insects in all tastes: large landscape larvae leaving a feeling of sweetness in the mouth, slightly crunchy caterpillars or termites cracked between your teeth
Junior D. Kanna / AFP via Getty Images
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Junior D. Kanna / AFP via Getty Images
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo – they are tasty than they seem. The edible insects in the form of asticots or hairy caterpillars are both delicacy and the clip in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a Central African nation of nearly 120 million people.
In the markets of the capital Kinshasa, bins full of brands of white asticots twisted the alleys, and the merchants fry caterpillars, spicy with chili, on coal fires. “The more you eat caterpillars, the more you have a long life,” said Trésor Kisanbu, grabbing a small plastic bag of fried caterpillars, on the largest Kinshasa market, Liberté market. “It strengthens your muscles and your eyes, it’s really organic,” he adds.
The villagers collect fresh caterpillars and maggots of rotten trees in woody areas on the Congolese interior. From there, they are sent by cargo on the Congo river – the second largest in Africa – for sale in the Kinshasa markets.
“People eat a lot,” said Mamman Coco, who manages a stand overflowing with piles of corn flour, dry beans and edible insects, at the center of the sprawling central market in Kinshasa.
It underlines the content of protein and vitamins rich in protein and vitamins of caterpillars as points of sale, and the fact that they are organic.
Crocal caterpillars on sale on a market in Kinshasa.
Junior D. Kannah / AFP
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Junior D. Kannah / AFP
To taste, the caterpillars are earthy and bitter. Known as MbinzoIn the dominant language of Kinshasa Lingala, the caterpillars come from a kind of emperor butterfly.
They are an expensive delicacy at around $ 200 per kilo, a huge sum in a poor crusher country where, according to the World Bank, two -thirds of the population survive less than $ 2 a day.
Mpose is a more popular price. This is the term lingala for palm rail areas, a type of beetle that lives in palm trees. They can be consumed with rice or fufu, a stucing basic food, or like a crisp fried snack.
The larvae are also mainly imported from rural areas, but they can be high commercially.
Congolese NGOs farms for orphaned increases Mpose The asticots by thousands to distribute to the orphanages of Kinshasa, but it also sells its products to market merchants and nostalgic Congolese emigrants for a taste of the house.
“In the DRC, meat products are not available for everyone,” said Françoise Lukadi, president of Farms for Orphans, because of their high cost. “If you buy very small amounts of insects, you earn more nutritional value than you buy the same amounts of meat,” she said.
The consumption of insects is traditional in many regions of the Congo. However, the practice is not common in all regions of the country. A huge state about the size of continental Western Europe, the Congo is extraordinarily diverse, with more than 200 different ethnic groups and as many spoken languages.
One person eats grilled olive oil caterpillars in a makeshift restaurant in the Lingwala district in Kinshasa.
Junior D. Kannah / AFP
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Junior D. Kannah / AFP
Some research suggests that insect consumption has increased in recent decades. A study in 2023 published in the journal Tropics wood and forests found that in the Luki biosphere reserve at around 250 miles southwest of Kinshasa, in the west of Congo, the villagers only started to eat insects in the late 1970s.
According to the main researcher Ernestine Longpi Tipi, this period coincided with drought and the progressive degradation of forests and the subsequent rarity of bush meat. Then, consecutive civil wars in the 1990s and 2000s created the economy.
Longpi Tipi added that the production of domestic larvae would ultimately result in problem solving access to food -rich food and nutrition.
Françoise Lukadi of farms for orphans agrees. In a low rectangular building in the main university of Kinshasa, the shelves are stacked with plastic bins from Charanna. Workers clean the bins and add new foods for maggots: pieces of palm bark and organic waste from beer production.
Farms for orphans produce around 300 kilos of maggots per month and seeks to extend production.
“They are very good to eat,” said Lukadi, but she admitted that even in Congo, where people regularly consume insects, many are still delicate.
