Vietnamese Snake Meat Extravaganza

In the Summer of 2008 I found myself in Hanoi, Vietnam's steamy capital city. In Hanoi, French colonial legacies of fine dining meet the South East Asian attitude of 'If it moves, eat it!' Hence, there's some pretty wacky stuff on the menu, and its all painstakingly prepared.

It seems every aspect of Vietnamese life revolves around food. Every square inch of flat land in the countryside has been dedicated to rice cultivation. Rural women spend all their waking hours tending their crops in the electric green fields, covered from head to toe in silk gloves, masks and hats to avoid any sun rays penetrating their ivory white skin. I was told this is so that nobody suspects they are a peasant rice farmer - apperantly only they have tans. In the city, every street corner in the city features a lady in silk pajamas is squatting over a steaming vat, ladling out steaming bowls of pho, Hanoi's famous beef broth. This is served with noodles, fresh herbs and plenty of chilis, and is delicious.

My two Vietnamese friends from college, Katy and Phuc Minh Nguyen (what a name) happened to be in Hanoi when I visited. Unsurprisingly, they both wanted me to try their favorite Vietnamese dishes. Katy insisted on trying cuisine from Hue, a city in southern Vietnam. This features a lot of peanut sauces and a curious deep fried rice pancake that you fill at the table with shredded meat and bean sprouts, sort of like a taco. Minh, on the other hand, had something else in mind.

His dad and cousin picked me and my mom up from our hotel in the city and we started driving out of town, crossing the Red River on a rickety old steel bridge buzzing with a swarm of mopeds. We soon got off the main road and found ourselves on the winding lanes of Le Mat village, essentially a suburb of Hanoi . Its famous throughout the nation for one thing: snake meat. We stepped out of the car into a beautiful courtyard and made our way up a winding, engraved wooden staircase to a terrace with a roof but no walls.

"Most restaurant in Le Mat too touristy. This one only for Vietnamese," said Minh as we climbed the steps. Stacked up on shelves all around, the tongues of king cobras pointed at us from jars and bottles in which they were pickled in a yellow liquid.

We sat down at our table and took in the strange atmosphere. Conversation wasn't exactly flowing, as Minh's dad and cousin spoke about 3 words of english between them, and our Vietnamese wasn't any better. Before long, two waiters came. Instead of menus, they brought a writhing burlap sack, a bottle and a funnel. One waiter opened the bag, while the other reached in and deftly pulled out a hissing King Cobra, holding it out for us to inspect. Minh and his family sat emotionless, and his father nodded slightly, never altering his Brahma cow-like facial expression.

"Its a good one," said Minh. "Plenty of meat."

Our scaly little friend barely had time to stick out its tongue before the other waiter removed a small dagger from his pocket and plunged it in the serpents neck. They both moved the bleeding snake over the funnel and one began squeezing the blood from its main artery into the bottle, while the other milked the venom from the fangs directly onto the tile floor. The Nguyen family watched the macabre spectacle as calmly as ever. Public displays of emotion are frowned upon by Vietnamese society, which values integrity and 'keeping face' above all else. My mother also seemed to have adopted a passive expression, but this was probably induced by the petrifiying effects of shock and horror.

Soon, the blood was all drained and the beast stopped writhing. The butchery wasnt over yet though. The knife was now jabbed into the snake about 1/3 down its body, and a beating heart was pulled out and placed in a shot glass. Another small organ (I was later told it was the pancreas) was also extracted and placed in the bottle. The shot glasses were placed on the table and filled with blood from the bottle. Being the oldest non-Vietnamese male at the table, I got the glass with the thumping heart.

"You must drink it! Shows respect for our cuisine." Without thinking too much about it, Iheld my breath and took the whole sanguine concoction down in one gulp, appreciating that my esophagus doesnt have nerve endings that might cause me to feel a moving reptile organ bandying around in my guts. The snake was taken to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, the barrage of dishes started coming out. First off was snake soup, accompanied by a dish of crushed, lightly fried snake bones for sprinkling. Then came the garlic snake springrolls, followed by dishes flavored with ginger, chilis, lemongrass and coriander. Everything was prepared in the most delicate, manner and was delicious, with one glaring exception: the snake meat.

Snake meat, for those of you who have never tried it, tastes like a cross between boiled white fish and a rubber hose. With every chew, you hope to unleash some semblance of favor, but to no avail. Were it not for the yummy sauces and seasonings on all the dishes, I may have vomited the slimy stuff up. Of couse, Minh and his family waxed lyrical about the delicious meat and benefits to male sexual function. His father kept smiling at me and making small punching motions in the air with his fist.

I felt slightly woozy for the remainder of the afternoon. Perhaps some of the toxic venom (which remained on the floor throughout the meal) turned to fumes and wafted into my nose. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but I wont be ordering snake meat on the menu anytime soon.