Different cultures have weird foods that can be irritating to some countries. What if you traveled to a country and the only kind of food sold happens to be Monkeys? Would you eat monkeys?
The sight of a man feasting on monkey meat can be disgusting to many Kenyans but not so for residents of this central African country.
Monkey meat has been a delicacy for the Congolese since time immemorial and features prominently in meals.
Monkey meat is all over town, from market places to restaurants and roadsides. You can have it as nyama choma, boiled, or fried.
And as they say, if you go to Rome, do what the Romans do. I sampled monkey choma on the r
oadside but the stuff could not go beyond the mouth.
For Mr. Nguero Bobando, a resident of one of the neighboring communities, he feels it is an ordinary delicacy and is a must-eat, especially during special occasions. He says, “I have been eating monkey meat since childhood. I like it so much that any meal without it would be incomplete,” he tells me. He adds that if he does not eat the meat for a week, he gets seriously sick.
According to Mrs. Salma Bobando, who sells the meat on Brazzaville streets, a whole monkey can fetch between 20,000 to 40,000 francs (Sh2,800 to Sh5,600), depending on the season. She says the meat can also be sold in smaller pieces.
The pieces fetch different prices, depending on the part of the monkey.
During dry spel
ls, hunters, mostly based in northern Congo, find it difficult to get the animals and that means prices shoot up. When the meat arrives at the market, residents scramble for it. “The hunters shoot them dead and then bring the carcasses to the market,” she says.
While monkey meat is popular among the Congolese living here, Mrs. Bobando says it is not so for chimpanzee and baboon meat.
“The meat from those animals is not liked by city residents but some tribes in the north love it,” she says.
In Kenya, women from certain ethnic communities are barred from eating some ki
nds of meat.
Monkey meat, also known as likaku in Lingala, is eaten by men, women, or children. Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanzanian athletes and others from other countries who saw monkey meat being sold in the open in Brazzaville immediately stopped ordering meat at the athletes’ dining hall.
