I know that I complained in a recent blog entry about soumbala and gumbo. But there’s foods far more exotic than that in West Africa.
By "exotic" foods, I mean foods that back home in Nebraska we'd describe as 'different'.
'Different' is a way to say 'really, really bad' in Midwestern Understated Dialect. If you invite a Nebraskan to see a politically-inspired modern dance piece featuring nude performers, scrap metal and chunks of raw meat, chances are he or she would say afterwards : "Thanks. That was different." We are a polite, cautious people.


So, being Nebraska born and raised, I'd have to say that caterpillars are different.


Now, I like caterpillars when they are A) humorous sidekick caterpillars, as featured in popular animated films, such as Bug’s Life. Or B) colourful creatures that stay outdoors, not making personal contact with me and eventually turning into butterflies.

I do NOT like caterpillars when they are C) dried, toasted and presented to me as my lunch.


Bobo-Dioulasso, the second largest city in Burkina, is famous for its edible caterpillars. It’s not a culinary oddity that the thrill-seeker has to laboriously ferret out. People present the things proudly at the town’s main market: bag after bag of the chubby brown bodies.
They are commonly eaten in sauces, but also in salads. And instead of a boring old mushroom omelette, in Burkina you can have yours with caterpillars.

I’ve posted a picture above from a cookbook called “Culinary Arts of Burkina Faso” (It’s published by the national tourisme office here). The book features several typical Burkinabé foods: tô, degue, zoom-koom, dolo, etc. and right in there among them are recipes for salad and omelettes featuring sitmus caterpillars.


Roasted grasshoppers are another somewhat alarming specialty. My friend Delphine loves them and nothing makes her happier than when a friend from Niger sends her a bag full of the crunchy treats. When she urged me to try some, I gingerly picked past the whole insects and found a small leg. It was not horrible, but I couldn’t get past the idea.
Eldest daughter (then age 6) is far more adventurous than her mom. She carefully chose a whole insect and popped it in her mouth. She thought it was great and settled down beside Delphine to eat a few more. She reported that the heads were a bit icky, but the bodies were pretty good.
Just like potato chips, but with more protein, I guess.


Folks in Burkina also eat bats. This was a source of a minor misunderstanding when I first arrived in Ouaga. I haven’t tried it – and probably won’t. But you can order stewed bat in some local restaurants.
Agouti (or grasscutter) is also frequently found in restaurants here, even though they live more to the south in places like Ghana.
Monkey meat is sometimes found. It's euphemistically called "bush meat".

Of course, the average person here doesn't eat much meat at all. And when they do, it tends to be either goat or mutton. Neither of these dishes are ever served at our house, though -especially the former.
Aslan the Wonder Goat is our friend, not our food!

Enter the Bat Shrine of Doom. Yeah. Real high on my “To Do” list.

But there was Isseuf, chortling gleefully and giving me a “You white girls are such sissies” kind of look. And I WAS pretty curious, I have to admit.
And the bats DID all seem to have relocated, at least for the moment.

I told A to go wait outside. No telling what would go on in this next, more mysterious shrine and I figured that NOT bringing the 10 year old child of missionaries into might be a good plan.

But, amazingly, A. wanted to come along and Alexa, too, was ok with it.
Mallory, unfortunately, was at the end of her patience with all the weirdness and was already outside. And I wasn’t going to make her. I’d let her brilliant anthropologist father figure that one out.

I gathered the other two girls right up behind me, figuring that I could block any stray bats that might have missed the initial bulletin that strangers were invading their home.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could make out that this room was about the same size as the Earth Shrine, but far more roomy. Instead of an elaborate altar at the far end, there was a very simple one, mostly made up of a big, black pottery jar. I don’t know what was in the jar. I was never even tempted to look. I was just relieved to see that there was a bench for us to sit on along one wall and that the floor was quite clean. Maybe the Earth Priest gets his wife to sweep it out regularly. At any rate, it was not the nightmare of bat droppings that I had been expecting.

I sat down with the two girls on each side of me and Isseuf was crouched near the Earth Priest. He translated the Earth Priests words to me:

“This is the Shrine of the Elephant Hunt. Now, of course, laws prevent us from hunting as we used to in the past, but we still keep our shrine. Even though we can’(t hunt elephants, we can ask here for help with other problems. Our troubles and obstacles can be lifted. We can ask for protection and prosperity. That is what I am going to do for your daughters. They will be protected when you leave our lands and go back to France.”

It was all very wonderful - but our last eight years in Africa have probably been far more risky than our eventual future in Europe will be. No malaria or meningitis in France! But going to live there no doubt sounded like a pretty perilous undertaking to an elderly Earth Priest who has never even been to Ouagadougou

And his previous demands for better health for Alexa seem to have worked wonders. So, why not?

I contemplated all this as I listened to JP trying to persuade a very reluctant Mallory to enter the Shrine of the Elephant Hunt. He had her in the doorway, but she wouldn’t come in. We all assured her it was fine (very clean, bat-free and far less scary than the Earth Shrine) but to no avail.

JP finally half-carried her in and sat down with her on the far end of the bench.

No sacrifices were even required here. We just sat respectfully while the Earth Priest chanted.

Tomorrow I hope to get to the end of this VERY long story...