Warning: This blog is not for the faint of heart. Proceed with caution.
Today we traveled 7km northeast of Hanoi to Le Mat, also known as snake village. The first place we stopped at wanted to charge us 250,000 Dong per person (about $15.50), an exorbitant price in a country where you can eat a healthy breakfast for 40,000. This was after some Vietnamese dude pulled out a live snake and barely managed to stay out of range of its poisonous fangs. Then they dragged the snake into the back and shoved it into a bag. A few of the women on the tour felt a bit faint after witnessing the spectacle. The next place only charged 100,000 big ones so we agreed and walked in. Two dudes proceeded to grab a snake and cut open its stomach, draining out its blood into a glass and then pulling out its heart and bladder. They repeated this three times and the hearts kept beating for several minutes outside the body.
We went upstairs and sat down at the table. There were 12 of us and on top of each plate was a little shot glass. Our waiter began pouring snake bile into the glasses. I was feeling way crusty and hangover from last night's overindulgence and between that and a healthy sense of trepidation about what I was going to eat, I felt a bit light-headed and queasy. It only got worse after the dude mixed up the snake bile with rice wine and then plopped a snake heart into my glass. Me and my friend Charlie and a couple others obligingly sucked it down. I even let the snake heart sit on my palate for a few seconds and tried to chew it, which proved to be just about impossible, way too stringy, so down it went in one piece. Next our waiter poured unadulterated snake blood into our glasses and we drank that down as well. It didn't taste like much, and even though freshly drained from the snake, it was lukewarm and a bit salty. Then we were treated to snake cooked 11 different ways. The best way for me was fatty and decadent tasting, somewhat reminiscent of duck. There was rice fried in snake fat. Etc.
Absolutely sick, dude. And yet, somehow, totally awesome as well. Nice job keeping the epicurean dark arts alive!!!
Posted by: Mr Deemer | April 17, 2008 at 05:15 AM