So I poured the still beating heart into my mouth and swallowed
Snake has been on the menu for a long time. "We must take you for snake" say my colleagues with broad smiles, but in three years it never happened.
We were discussing this failure. The reason offered was that the colleague making the offer wanted another colleague to go along, however that colleague was born in the year of the snake and did not eat her relatives. So the saga had dragged on but was brought to a head by the rapidly approaching Lunar new year and my departure for the UK. It had to be now..... unfortunately "now" meant the night I had reserved for packing my bags.
Common sense prevailed and we went for snake.
Now you don't just go anywhere for snake, you have to go to the famous snake village, which involved a 30 minute motorbike ride through the pre Tet (Pre Christmas to those of you who live in the UK) traffic and then wriggling through a rabbit warren of narrow backstreets with no clear signage other than large billboards showing pictures of Cobras and announcing delicious Bamboo snake, or Bamboo snake gardens; until the road eventually ran out and we were faced with a small gateway which looked like a temple entrance but which was actually the entrance to THE snake restaurant.
Inside we parked motorbikes infront of an altar and saw a caged off area where two guys in wellingtons were handling writhing bags, which obviously contained snakes. We were shown to our seats and then invited to go choose our snake.
This is a Vietnamese custom not for the squeemish. I've seen restaurants which advertise "turtle killed at your table" and I have seen eels being bled to make potent rice wine which looks like a cross between Shiraz and cherryade. This was the first time I was going to partake.
There was an exchange in Vietnamese between my hosts and the staff and two rather lively snakes were dragged out of a cage. We were told they were bamboo snakes, that there was no English name for them, that they were farmed rather than wild and that they weighed 450 grams. We were also told that they were not poisonous, which somewhat disclaimed all the posters which offered Bamboo snake but showed pictures of cobras.
The snake handlers were more than a match for the poor reptiles which, having been weighed, were dragged out of the bags, stretched out, had their throats cut, their blood drained, chest cavity opened and heart removed all in a matter of seconds. The still writhing bodies with heads removed were then skinned and gutted in large bowls of hot water in a matter of minutes. I watched a dismembered head slowly crawling across the floor propelled by the mouth which was opening and closing convulsively... Until one of the staff who had not seen it stood on it and it stopped moving altogether.
We retrurned to our table to find a bottle of blood rice wine, a bottle of snake bile rice wine and a bottle of specially brewed rice wine. The special brew was guaranteed to make men strong (wink wink). It tasted pretty poor.
More concerning was the small petri dish sitting in the middle of the table. It contained the still beating hearts of our two snakes. Now this really does make men strong.... providing the pathogens in the raw blood don't kill you that is. I looked at the dish, hypnotised by the movement. There were three men at the table and two hearts. The Vietnamese guy said "I'm not having a heart", so graceous, that leaves one for each of us.
As we pondered what to do a guy appeared, poured blood rice wine into our glasses and used a toothpick to flick one heart into each glass. Photos were taken and apprehensively we picked up our glasses and looking into them. Little ripples in the rice wine every time the heart pulsed.
I took a deep breath, looked at my colleague, we touched glasses in a toast and the I poured the still beating heart into my mouth and swallowed.
Contrary to popular belief I could not feel it pulsing down my throat, or in my stomach. It just went and that was it.
The rest of the snakes was then served in ten different dishes starting with snake soup and going all the way up to snake entrails. Actually, it was quite good.
We were discussing this failure. The reason offered was that the colleague making the offer wanted another colleague to go along, however that colleague was born in the year of the snake and did not eat her relatives. So the saga had dragged on but was brought to a head by the rapidly approaching Lunar new year and my departure for the UK. It had to be now..... unfortunately "now" meant the night I had reserved for packing my bags.
Common sense prevailed and we went for snake.
Now you don't just go anywhere for snake, you have to go to the famous snake village, which involved a 30 minute motorbike ride through the pre Tet (Pre Christmas to those of you who live in the UK) traffic and then wriggling through a rabbit warren of narrow backstreets with no clear signage other than large billboards showing pictures of Cobras and announcing delicious Bamboo snake, or Bamboo snake gardens; until the road eventually ran out and we were faced with a small gateway which looked like a temple entrance but which was actually the entrance to THE snake restaurant.
Inside we parked motorbikes infront of an altar and saw a caged off area where two guys in wellingtons were handling writhing bags, which obviously contained snakes. We were shown to our seats and then invited to go choose our snake.
This is a Vietnamese custom not for the squeemish. I've seen restaurants which advertise "turtle killed at your table" and I have seen eels being bled to make potent rice wine which looks like a cross between Shiraz and cherryade. This was the first time I was going to partake.
There was an exchange in Vietnamese between my hosts and the staff and two rather lively snakes were dragged out of a cage. We were told they were bamboo snakes, that there was no English name for them, that they were farmed rather than wild and that they weighed 450 grams. We were also told that they were not poisonous, which somewhat disclaimed all the posters which offered Bamboo snake but showed pictures of cobras.
The snake handlers were more than a match for the poor reptiles which, having been weighed, were dragged out of the bags, stretched out, had their throats cut, their blood drained, chest cavity opened and heart removed all in a matter of seconds. The still writhing bodies with heads removed were then skinned and gutted in large bowls of hot water in a matter of minutes. I watched a dismembered head slowly crawling across the floor propelled by the mouth which was opening and closing convulsively... Until one of the staff who had not seen it stood on it and it stopped moving altogether.
We retrurned to our table to find a bottle of blood rice wine, a bottle of snake bile rice wine and a bottle of specially brewed rice wine. The special brew was guaranteed to make men strong (wink wink). It tasted pretty poor.
More concerning was the small petri dish sitting in the middle of the table. It contained the still beating hearts of our two snakes. Now this really does make men strong.... providing the pathogens in the raw blood don't kill you that is. I looked at the dish, hypnotised by the movement. There were three men at the table and two hearts. The Vietnamese guy said "I'm not having a heart", so graceous, that leaves one for each of us.
As we pondered what to do a guy appeared, poured blood rice wine into our glasses and used a toothpick to flick one heart into each glass. Photos were taken and apprehensively we picked up our glasses and looking into them. Little ripples in the rice wine every time the heart pulsed.
I took a deep breath, looked at my colleague, we touched glasses in a toast and the I poured the still beating heart into my mouth and swallowed.
Contrary to popular belief I could not feel it pulsing down my throat, or in my stomach. It just went and that was it.
The rest of the snakes was then served in ten different dishes starting with snake soup and going all the way up to snake entrails. Actually, it was quite good.
posted by Marvin.. at Thursday, February 11, 2010
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