Eating Bigass Ants
A few days ago I opened up to you guys (very bravely I think) and told you about a couple of the insects I fear. Today I want to redress the balance a little and tell you about an insect that I am just dying to eat meet. It goes by the name Tanajura and with no further ado let’s take a look at one:
Tanajura – a flying leaf-cutter ant with an enlarged, erm, abdomen.
I know, it’s not exactly pretty is it? But, as I just hinted, my interest is not entirely entomological.
My usual intense levels of research tell me that these flying ants leave the nest in droves at the start of the rainy season. Each one is a virgin female whose mission is to find a mate and then find a good place to start a new colony. The Tanajura takes a good store of fat so that she can lay enough eggs to get the new colony started and also a mouthful of the fungus that leaf-cutter ants cultivate for food.
I expect most of you have seen swarms of flying ants or termites at one time or another. In England there is usually a particularly hot and humid day in August when all the ants come out of their nests and start doing their best to fly into people’s hair, mouth or underwear. Whilst these ants are kind of annoying, they are very small and the whole thing is over in a couple of hours without any great drama.
A handful of Tanajura bundinhas. This amount cost R$10 (approx $5 US, £3 GB)
The Tanajuras, on the other hand, are big. And apparently they’re delicious. So much so that in many parts of Brazil (particularly the Northeast as far as I can tell), the flight of the Tanajuras is greeted with delight – people of all ages come running out onto the street, waving shirts around to knock the insects out of the air or collecting them from bushes and trees in the forest. The head is pulled from the body and then the remaining bundinha is dropped into a collecting tin or bottle.
Seems that they will also give a painful bite – skip to 3:10 – here we can see the process of phobia development in a little kid (shouldn’t laugh should I?).
The abdomens can be eaten raw, but most people prefer to fry them in butter, roast them in the oven (again, with some oil or butter) or mix them into farofa. They say that the ants taste best before they have mated and so the eating of virgin insects has led to claims of aphrodisiac properties.
Top: Frying them in butter; Bottom: Mixed with farofa. Look delicious don’t they?
OK, so we have some bigass ants that you can eat. But the story doesn’t end there. “Tanajura” signifies more than just an ant with a large derrière – a quick image search will demonstrate that it also signifies a woman with a large derrière. In fact, anything with a large behind might get named after these tasty insects:
The Tanajura touring bike.
But most usually it is used to refer to women with generously endowed behinds, a prized asset here in Brazil. And the jokes don’t stop there because the verb ‘to eat’, comer, has a another meaning here, such that eating a tanajura, could be the description of something rather X rated (I saw several guys crack this joke when I was browsing the forums for info). I’m trying to stay classy here and not spell it out completely, but it isn’t what an English speaker might think – let’s say that the tanajuras that escape the frying pan will try to find a male to ‘eat’ them so they can start a new family. Got it?
I’ll leave you with a song which tells the story of catching and eating the falling Tanajura. The video title says that the singer, João Gonçalves, is the King of Double Meaning, so I’ll let you decide which kind of Tanajura is being ‘eaten’. To be honest, my pure and innocent mind isn’t 100% sure about this, so I will get my wife to draw me a picture when I get home.
I’ve never met anyone in Brazil who has eaten ants. Nego não é doido
I suspect it may be more of a rural Brazilian thing, since I haven’t seen tanajura on the menu in either Fortaleza or Salvador. I would try it!
(You made me LOL with the “tanajura touring bike”!)
Yeah, most of the video clips (of people collecting the ants) looked fairly rural. I really want to try them. They are big in Colombia too (though I suspect they eat a different variety) and also in Africa where people sweep them up once they fall to the ground.
I have never tried insects, but come to think of it aren’t shrimp, crab, lobster and so forth really just ocean bugs? And yummy bugs at that.
That’s right Gritty, they’re all arthropods (insects, crustacea, etc) if my memory serves me correctly.
I had some barbecued caterpillars in Africa, but they were kind of horrible and bitter. Also had crickets/grasshoppers in Vietnam (mixed into a stir fry) and they were very good.
For me, the two holy grails of insects are both found in Australia. The Witchetty Grub and the Honey Pot ant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchetty_grub
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_ant
Have you seen this video from the New York Times???
Brazilian Tradition of Eating Ants
In the town of Silveiras, Brazil, the frying and eating of queen ants dates back centuries, but pesticides used by the booming paper industry are now threatening the insects.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/01/04/world/americas/1248069519368/brazilian-tradition-of-eating-ants.html
Awesome clip Brae!
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, being in the big city and all, but most people here haven’t heard of it and certainly haven’t tried it. Interesting to hear the guy on the clip saying that people are/were ashamed of eating them – maybe that’s why the breathtakingly eloquent hsrtjhsghsfg (nice name btw) hasn’t met anyone who will admit to having eaten them?
Hey Tom,
I thought you would be interested to see this – horrifying but fascinating given your interest in all things entomologically related. Its amazing…
(and its from the Daily Mail but via National Geographic -so forgive me!).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2086250/30-Japanese-hornets-kill-30-000-European-honeybees-video.html
Bjs
Rebecca
Those monsters!! I’m surprised the Daily Mail didn’t give it some kind of hysterical spin along the lines of “Asian immigrants massacre our good old British honey bees – Richard Littlejohn explains why the Loony Left is to blame.” – heh heh ;)
My contacts in England sent me an e-mail informing that Asian immigrants are murdering native honey bees by the dozen.
I told them that’s what happens when you vote Labor, Democrat, or PT.
Gritty, you and Richard L. would get on like a house on fire ;)
I remember very well when I was about 5 years old and used to go to my Aunties house in the country and all the kids used to go to catch the Tanajuras. Then we would take it home and the adults would cook with farinha. I liked it back then but now that I am older and no longer live in Brazil I doubt that if I would eat this again. I guess it’s something that you grow up with and it’s normal. On the video the kids was being bitten by the ants and it was nothing really serious, it was ok to laugh…it happened to all of us before if you were in that enviroment. Tanajura…feia de cara boa de bunda! Will never forget that!
Ah, how nice! I would love to try them! One day I will make an expedition. “feia de cara, boa de bunda” is hilarious! :D
I thank you because I was finally able to find information on these huge ants.I live in Martinique (small French West Indies for those who do not know,some evenings during ant swarms I have seen huge ones like this but I couldn’t find anything about them until now so thanks a lot
Hi Oly! I’m so glad thisbpost helped. So now the big question: how are you cooking your ants? Fried in butter with a sprinkling of salt? ;) Here in Rio I haven’t seen a tanajura in years.