6 Unusual Things Eaten By Nigerians As Food

Winged Termites

I know I am going to receive some bashing for this but I still want to write about this. I have seen people eat a lot of things in Nigeria, things that I sometimes cannot even touch with my hand. This is especially true when it comes to meat; Nigerians that eat them would tell you  “meat na meat” (meat is meat irrespective of the source). People eat pigeon all over the  world and I can’t even imagine eating birds like that. I’m not saying it’s bad but I just can’t eat it.

Unusual Things Eaten By Nigerians as Food

I thought long about these things that we eat in this part of the world but may be strange to people from other parts of the world – unless those in the farm settlements over there. Finally, I came up with this simple list of some foods that I think are really unconventional as foods but when I talked to some people, I deduced that unusual might end up being a matter of where you have lived and what you have been exposed to in life.

1. Snakes

Even the sight of these crawling creatures can make me come out of my skin. I simply don’t like seeing them and this makes me wonder why someone would eat snakes. Often when I see people go through a lot of trouble to kill a snake (mostly venomous), it just get me thinking – “what if they get bitten by this snake?”, “how big is even this snake?”. The stress is not just worth it.

2. Winged Termites

If you live in Nigeria or have ever lived in Nigeria, you should know these insects. They come out of the bush en masse when rain falls and start circling around any source of light that they see. We leverage on this as the method to capture them – we switch off all the lights around and leave just one, these insects come around that one and we just pack them with brooms into containers of water.

Sometimes, they just drop inside the bucket of water themselves after losing one or two of their wings. A large part of their wings drop in the water, we pack them and roast them with salt inside the pot. The white fluid that sometimes come out of them is one of the reasons I cannot eat them.

3. Cricket – the insect

This is another insect that I would not eat even at gun point. In fact I cannot eat any insect and their relatives except the more fleshy and delicious crustaceans that are eaten everywhere in the world. They are mostly sea foods like crabs, crayfish and are very nutritious too.

I found out that people eat this when I was in the University. They just came encroaching my hostel one day and I took it upon myself to start killing them because they were making some loud, irritating noises. The security guy then came to me and asked if I was going to cook them. Cook what?

4. Bush Rats

Nigerians eat bush rat but do not eat the ones in their homes. Maybe because the ones that run around the houses are not big enough because as far as I am concerned, they are the same. When I said bush rats, I was not referring to those ones with brown furs. I am talking about those big rats ones with black furs and even come as far as gutters around houses in some areas. You can come across them, morning, afternoon and night in gutters around some markets in Lagos.

Their sight alone is disgusting, they crawl in gutters and some people still have the guts to kill, cook and eat them. Eeeewwwwwww!

5. Alligator

To be honest, I have eaten this once and it tasted good but I did not know I was eating alligator meat until someone told me. I just thought it would be rabbit meat or something like that. After I found out, I almost vomited my intestine out.

I couldn’t come to terms with the fact I ate that ugly, crawling, green creature. I couldn’t keep the colour of Hulk’s skin off my head.

6. Cats – yes Tom cat in Tom and Jerry

Cats are pets in many part of the world and I am very sure people in other climes would be shocked to know that some people kill and eat cats in Nigeria. I was even disappointed when I found out because the person that told me he eats it happens to be a friend. Eat cat? Who does that?

There is also this worm that Nigerian eat, it’s just that I don’t know the real name. Someone told me they are called mopane worms but I have not confirmed that. Therefore, I cannot add it to this list. Some people eat frogs too and I found out that it is not only in Nigeria that frogs are being eaten.

I would understand if people in villages eat some of this things — not someone that was born and bred in cities. Where did they get that from? I won’t say more than that.