Kunga cake or kungu is a food dish made of densely compressed

midge A midge is any small fly, including species in several family (biology), families of non-mosquito nematoceran Diptera. Midges are found (seasonally or otherwise) on practically every land area outside permanently arid deserts and the frigid ...

s or flies. It is found in the

African Great Lakes The African Great Lakes (; ) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tangan ...

region, specifically countries surrounding

Lake Malawi Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, () is an African Great Lakes, African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is ...

(Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique).

May Berenbaum May Roberta Berenbaum (born July 22, 1953) is an American entomologist, who is a professor of entomology at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on the chemical interactions between herbivorous insects and their host plan ...

, an American

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

, discusses how swarms of midges can cause significant problems for local populations. She cites an example of swarms of '' Chaoborus edulis'', a species of midge, forming near Lake Malawi and how the local people turn them into kunga cakes as a "rich source of protein", which is eaten "with great enthusiasm". To catch the flies, a frying pan can be coated in cooking oil and then wafted through a swarm. In ''Insects: An Edible Field Guide'', a book on the consumption of insects, author Stefan Gates suggests that people can "make burgers with it, or dry it out and grate parts of it off into stews" for "

umami Umami ( from ), or savoriness, is one of the five basic tastes. It is characteristic of broths and cooked meats. People taste umami through taste receptors that typically respond to glutamates and nucleotides, which are widely present in me ...

richness". Adventurer

Bear Grylls Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls (; born 7 June 1974) is a British adventurer, writer, television presenter and former Special Air Service, SAS trooper who is also a survival expert. He first drew attention after embarking on a number of notable ...

calls kunga cake "a great survival food". Explorer

David Livingstone David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, and an explorer in Africa. Livingstone was married to Mary Moffat Livings ...

claimed that they "tasted not unlike caviar".

References

{{African cuisine African cuisine Insect dishes Diptera of Africa