Tis the Season!

While many of you are bustling about with Christmas shopping, and praying earnestly for a white Christmas, we here in Masaka are celebrating a different kind of season – that of the Ensenene (grasshoppers).

With the rainy season come these delightful creatures, much loved by everyone from child to adult (at least everyone local!) Not only delicious and nutritious, they are also an economic boon. Selling at 5,000shillings a cup, some people are able to buy cars off of their ensenene season earnings. I’ve tried my best to document all the steps involved in this much anticipated time of year.

1.) Put up the catchers - all around Masaka and Nyendo, you see these contraptions. At night, they rest huge metallic sheets against the supports, and put on floodlights. Attracted by the lights, the unsuspecting ensenene hit the sheet and tumble down into the barrel, from which they have no hope of escape. Somehow, even if the rest of the neighborhood is without power, they manage to keep the floodlights lit, and the ensenene look like snow falling as they swarm overhead.

2. Pluck off the feathers - The next morning, the catchers bag up the ensenene and sell them off in smaller lots. The buyers usually hire cheap labor (including many of our street kids) to pluck of the legs and wings of the (live!) ensenene. They really rip them off, paying just 200shillings for them to pluck a cupful, but I’ve noticed that all the boys have gained some weight this month as they shell out their earnings for all kinds of snacks and treats. Lots of new kids also come to the streets at this time, which is not good.

3. Go around selling them – Buckets full of raw (and still wiggling) ensenene bodies are carried around the streets and sold by the cupful.

4. Fry em up – Once you buy them, you fry them. No need to add any oil- their own juices do the trick quite nicely!

5. And enjoy – After frying, it’s time to enjoy the crunchy consistency and savory flavor. See how much I’m loving it? ;)

To be honest, I’ve only eaten 1/3 of an ensenene to date (made my colleagues take of the head and bottom.) The flavor is nice, but I can’t get over the mental image of having ensenene exoskeleton stuck in my teeth. I know my friends here might be disappointed by that, but what can I say, I’m still a muzungu at heart, with a taste for a different kind of holiday treat…