Hickory Dickory Dock, A Mouse Went In The Pot

Funny how we are put into a certain group by the kind of food we eat. In fact, specific diets represent whole nations. If I say Pizza, everyone thinks Italian. If I say feta cheese, everyone thinks Greek. Sauerkraut – Germany, Christmas pudding – England and so on and so on.

Recently, I’ve been introduced to the idea of mice on the menu.

I always ask the kids at school if they did anything interesting over the weekend and I usually get the same answer “I play soccer” or “I wash my clothes” or “I go church”. One boy in grade 4, who is more confident than the rest of the class has surprised me by putting up his hand to tell me that he shoots birds with his catty when I popped the question.

A few Mondays later he caught my attention as he was giggling excitedly. I moved closer and he pointed to his friend seated next to him and said, “he eat puku”, meaning “he ate a mouse”. Luckily, prior to this, my new Zimbabwean friend had told me that eating mice and huge rats were common back home and that kids would often catch mice as a pass time which they cooked on a fire. She said the big rats were a meal for the whole family, some being the size of small pigs. If you went to bed without washing your hands after eating, you ran the risk of rats gnawing away at your fingers in your rural hut.

The sweet embarrassment of the boy in the class who was put on the spot had nothing to do with the fact that he had eaten a mouse but rather that he was now expected to speak English. I licked my lips exaggeratedly and said “really, did you make a fire to cook it?” which made everyone giggle and he nodded yes and grinned.

I’ve recently heard about people eating mice in Zambia. This particular woman boiled her mice in a pot and ate them whole, as in head, hair, guts and all. Eeuw. That’s a bit rough for me to want to try.

Marius, who I mentioned in my previous post, popped around on his way home the other day. His bush survival stories are enthralling so, wanting to impress him, I recounted the story of munching on boiled mice. He listened patiently as I hurried to the part about the hair still being on, then he slowly tapped his Gouloise on the cigarette box a few times, and said it reminded him of the time he won a Mercedes Benz at a festival in Namibia. His was jonk en jukkerig and at a fair with a girl who he had the hots for. A few beers later, she fluttered her eyelashes at him, offering him the promise of a good time if he took part in the competition to win a brand new Merc. The catch was, contestants had to swallow a mouse and keep it down for five minutes. The real catch was that the mouse was still alive. Contestants held their mouse which was dipped in syrup, by their tails and swallowed it without chewing.

Marius remembered being more worried about throwing up the beer which he had just spent good money on but the R20 ticket to take part in the competition, which was a lot of money in those days, was money well spent since a young girl waited excitedly on the sideline. Of the 16 contestants, a few were able to successfully swallow the live mouse smothered in syrup but no-one was able to keep them down for the full 5 minutes except for Marius. He resisted the urge to part with the contents of his stomach long enough to receive the keys to a brand new Merc. Only then, green at the gills from the strange sensation in his stomach, keys safely in hand, did he throw up.

He got the girl and the car of his dreams which in fact wasn’t the Merc but the old man’s Voxaul which he had his eye on for some time. He traded the Merc for the Voxaul, and with the fathers blessings walked away a very happy man.