Exotic foods.

“Have one”, my host said. “It tastes like biltong.” I have wanted to taste them for some time and the mention of biltong was the perfect encouragement. I happen to love biltong. I had a few opportunities to sample it before but every time I put it off until ‘next time'.

The year was 1989 and the venue was a game farm in the north of our country. It was getting dark and there was a bosvark (wild hog) sizzling on a spit braai (giant rotisserie). I was into my second brandy and feeling brave. My two friends who came with me from Cape Town looked at me in anticipation. The bowl in the middle of the table was supposed to be a hors d'oeuvre of some sort .

I took the spoon and scratched in the bowl that my host put on the table. It was the dried variety (I saw when they went in the pot) and it looked delicious; done in a sauce laced with onion, tomato, garlic and chilies. I scooped the smallest one and dumped it on my plate. From there it went into my mouth and I chewed on it.

It was tough enough to be biltong, but that was where the resemblance ended. I chewed and I chewed. At first it tasted good; it was a great sauce… and then the real taste came. It was a musty taste, almost like the odor you get when you dig a hole in the ground.

I chewed and I chewed and I chewed. I did not like it. I wanted to swallow it, but it was still too large. I could not spit it out because I was the one boasting that I eat anything. I went on chewing.

At last I could swallow it. I looked at my host across the table. He was busy with his second and his wife was also chewing one. “How was it? You want another?” he asked.

“Delicious!” I lied. “But no thank you.” At least that was the truth. I’d never want to eat another in my life. In my silence I decided to change my boast to ‘eating almost anything’.

I took the bowl again and fished the two largest worms out there and placed them on the platters of my two friends. A deal is a deal. I have completed my side of the bargain. It was their turn.