“The more you eat caterpillars, the more you’ll have a long life,” says Trésor Kisanbu, clutching a small plastic bag of fried caterpillars, in Kinshasa’s largest market, Marché Liberté. Villagers harvest fresh caterpillars and maggots from rotting tree trunks in forested areas in the Congolese interior. From there, they’re sent by the boatload down the Congo River — the second-largest in Africa — for sale in Kinshasa’s markets. This is the Lingala term for the larvae of palm weevils, a type of beetle that lives in palm trees. Workers clean out the tubs and add in new food for the maggots: pieces of palm bark and organic waste from beer production.