The Wild Food Festival in Hokitika is an annual highlight on the south island of NZ. Thousands of people come together to eat and drink weird stuff. And also to dress up. The festival is not about dressing up though, but New Zealanders just like to swing themselfs in a costume (mostly a whole group of them) and appear at any occasion carnival-styled.
And here's a little selection of weirdness or wildness: Grashoppers and Cricketts on peanut butter, ...
...grilled (with wool) Lambstail, ...
...westcoast Whitebait on sandwich (you can still see the eyes blinking), ...
...fried mountain oysters (if you - dear reader - can guess what mountain oysters are, you can win a pair),...
...and of course the main attraction of the festival: Huhu Grubs
Wiki says:
The huhu beetle, Prionoplus reticularis, is the largest endemic beetle found in New Zealand, a member of the longhorn beetle family Cerambycidae.
It is known to the Māori as Pepe tunga. The whitish larvae are up to 70 mm long. They are edible, and are said by some to taste like buttery chicken (although opinions differ).They get carved out of treestumps and can be eaten either fried:
or alive:
...which causes funny facial expressions. They taste a bit like peanut butter and their head is really crunchy.
And my favourite costume of the festival, tennis players:
After all the delicious munchies (we also had kangaroo, crocodile, german bratwurst, ostrich pie and the strange java drink) we played some softball on the Hokitika beach...
...saw amazing nature on the way home to our church...
...and ended the day that was completely dedicated to food with more ... well ... food. Luckily this time only traditional New Zealand BBQ munchies and a smokin apple for dessert. (in G hand you can see the most important part of every meal in NZ, tomato sauce)
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