(Photo snatched from www.spaech.blogspot.com)
The Baganda call this month Musenene, the month in which, from ages past, the edible and well loved grasshopper (Homorocoryphus Nitidulus) literally fell from the sky. November is the main nsenene season, the other being April, when a swarm of the delicious locusts converges on the areas around Lake Victoria from the greater North.
The season was heralded by children and adults alike gathering round street light posts to catch the dazed insects. Mindless about street traffic, with eyes fixed on the zooming green and brown nsenene, many people put their lives at risk of road accidents. Those with bright security lights benefited from the juicy visitors that whirred by during the night. In the morning chattering children, many of them in school uniforms, would be seen chasing after the nsenene caught in the dew of the grass.
The insects would be caught, one at a time, and stuffed down the neck of a bottle or into a cup of hot water – either route being a point of no return.
Then the harvest would be brought home with much excitement, for the wings and legs to be twisted off, leaving only a slender naked abdomen and knob-shaped head.
These would then be stirred over a hot pan until they turned a deliciously crisp golden brown. Crunchy and somewhat salty, nsenene is a cheap source of protein, calcium, and unsaturated oils.
To those that have acquired the taste, nsenene is the object of undiluted greed for many Ugandans of all ages. A favourite joke is to tease a husband about finding himself on the receiving end of his pregnant wife’s tantrums if she asks for nsenene in the middle of the night, moreover on the wrong month.
During the month of Musenene, everyone was sure to get a mini harvest and neighbours would freely (maybe grudgingly too) share their catch.
Well, the romantic story of nsenene of old is no more.
Today most of the grasshoppers that make the long trip from the Abyssinian heights end up at commercial harvesting rigs set up by ambitious greedy capitalists who have monopolized the catching of nsenene.
Weeks before the first insects are expected, building sites with top floors are booked and leased for the sole purpose of catching the most nsenene possible. The ‘combine harvesters’ consist of rows of huge barrels fitted with shiny new iron sheets and crudely wired light bulbs. The fluorescent lights bounce off the iron sheets, at once attracting and blinding the insects. When they hit the iron sheets the nsenene slide all the way down to the bottom of the barrel, literally. Security guards are hired to keep watch, and sometimes live electric cables are wired around the area to deter thieves.
This way the monopolists lag home tonnes and tonnes of nsenene, and close out the ordinary people who used to get free ‘manna’ from heaven.
The commercial nsenene production includes wholesale trade in sacks of nsenene, transported over distances as long as 150km to the city in order to get the best price. At the market places like Nakasero in Kampala, vendors use ash to dewing the insects and set about selling them raw, fried or preserving them. To preserve nsenene, they are boiled briefly in water then sun dried to a crispness.
With the preservation, nsenene can be available all year round, rather than in the month of Musenene.
While this makes it possible to preserve, market and even export the delicacy, the natural balance has been upset.
Commercially harvested nsenene usually starts to smell as the live insects interact with dead ones in sacks loaded on cramped vehicles. This smell lingers on to the last. The quality deteriorates significantly with the passing of time. Sometimes at the onset of the season traders are not ashamed to sell last season’s nsenene as if it were fresh.
Many people cannot afford a dessertspoonful of fried nsenene – barely enough to satisfy a craving - at between sh100 and sh300.
The social activity around the collection and preparation of the grasshoppers is no more and I fear that a strong part of the Kiganda culture is died with it. There are old songs about grasshopper gathering, which no doubt are not being sung by the commercial harvesters.
I write this as I thank God for the handful of fresh nsenene popping in my mouth. I write as I mourn the way comercialisation has overtaken the rich tradition and taste of the versions we traditionally caught and prepared ourselves in days gone by.
The season was heralded by children and adults alike gathering round street light posts to catch the dazed insects. Mindless about street traffic, with eyes fixed on the zooming green and brown nsenene, many people put their lives at risk of road accidents. Those with bright security lights benefited from the juicy visitors that whirred by during the night. In the morning chattering children, many of them in school uniforms, would be seen chasing after the nsenene caught in the dew of the grass.
The insects would be caught, one at a time, and stuffed down the neck of a bottle or into a cup of hot water – either route being a point of no return.
Then the harvest would be brought home with much excitement, for the wings and legs to be twisted off, leaving only a slender naked abdomen and knob-shaped head.
These would then be stirred over a hot pan until they turned a deliciously crisp golden brown. Crunchy and somewhat salty, nsenene is a cheap source of protein, calcium, and unsaturated oils.
To those that have acquired the taste, nsenene is the object of undiluted greed for many Ugandans of all ages. A favourite joke is to tease a husband about finding himself on the receiving end of his pregnant wife’s tantrums if she asks for nsenene in the middle of the night, moreover on the wrong month.
During the month of Musenene, everyone was sure to get a mini harvest and neighbours would freely (maybe grudgingly too) share their catch.
Well, the romantic story of nsenene of old is no more.
Today most of the grasshoppers that make the long trip from the Abyssinian heights end up at commercial harvesting rigs set up by ambitious greedy capitalists who have monopolized the catching of nsenene.
Weeks before the first insects are expected, building sites with top floors are booked and leased for the sole purpose of catching the most nsenene possible. The ‘combine harvesters’ consist of rows of huge barrels fitted with shiny new iron sheets and crudely wired light bulbs. The fluorescent lights bounce off the iron sheets, at once attracting and blinding the insects. When they hit the iron sheets the nsenene slide all the way down to the bottom of the barrel, literally. Security guards are hired to keep watch, and sometimes live electric cables are wired around the area to deter thieves.
This way the monopolists lag home tonnes and tonnes of nsenene, and close out the ordinary people who used to get free ‘manna’ from heaven.
The commercial nsenene production includes wholesale trade in sacks of nsenene, transported over distances as long as 150km to the city in order to get the best price. At the market places like Nakasero in Kampala, vendors use ash to dewing the insects and set about selling them raw, fried or preserving them. To preserve nsenene, they are boiled briefly in water then sun dried to a crispness.
With the preservation, nsenene can be available all year round, rather than in the month of Musenene.
While this makes it possible to preserve, market and even export the delicacy, the natural balance has been upset.
Commercially harvested nsenene usually starts to smell as the live insects interact with dead ones in sacks loaded on cramped vehicles. This smell lingers on to the last. The quality deteriorates significantly with the passing of time. Sometimes at the onset of the season traders are not ashamed to sell last season’s nsenene as if it were fresh.
Many people cannot afford a dessertspoonful of fried nsenene – barely enough to satisfy a craving - at between sh100 and sh300.
The social activity around the collection and preparation of the grasshoppers is no more and I fear that a strong part of the Kiganda culture is died with it. There are old songs about grasshopper gathering, which no doubt are not being sung by the commercial harvesters.
I write this as I thank God for the handful of fresh nsenene popping in my mouth. I write as I mourn the way comercialisation has overtaken the rich tradition and taste of the versions we traditionally caught and prepared ourselves in days gone by.
4 comments:
huh? i still cannot bring myself to imagine bringing that nsenene to my mouth without evacuating my stomach quite violently beforehand, i shall leave this for you to enjoy.
It took Time for me to appreciate these things and wow they are quite enjoyable...Next am trying out caterpillars, some people have described them as a delicacy not sure when am performing this fit but I'll sure write about the experience
@31337, you don't know what you are missing.
@emi's, aye aye,on nsenene. But on catterpillars...NAY!!!
Hey, do you stay in Kampala? I do. I've been thinking that it might be possible to cultivate the Nsenene. As a kid, I worked in an aquarium in the US and we used to raise crickets quiet easily. Just kept a bunch in a barrel with some twigs. We would throw in a potato, every once and a while, and there was a never ending supply of them. Want to go into business? Send me an email at roey82@gmail.com
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