The story of cooking or eating snake meat for food today is difficult to surprise even residents of those places where snakes are not found, and have never been considered as a source of food. No one is surprised by the stories of tourists about the taste of roast from, ostrich or snake.

However, if you do not live in Southeast Asia, Africa or South America, then, most likely, your knowledge about how to eat snake meat after all is quite superficial. We believe that few people will answer without thinking about whether it is possible to eat an adder, python or cobra.

In this article we will talk about which snake meat is safe to eat, in particular, we will talk about the possibility of eating viper meat.

Let's begin with meat of both poisonous snakes and non-poisonous is considered suitable for eating.. Of course the issue of capturing and preparing a poisonous snake should be taken more seriously.

When fishing, it is important not to allow a snake bite, but when cutting an animal, you should first cut off your headto prevent accidentally the poison contained in it from spreading over the carcass of the animal. In addition, in the first minutes after the death of the jaw, snakes can shrink and fangs release poison, so you should stay away from the snake head.

Vipers, or rather snakes of the viper family, are considered poisonous. The habitat of various species of vipers is very wide. They are not found only in Australia and on the islands of Oceania.

And since the species diversity of vipers is very rich, it is not surprising that snakes of this species in many countries are frequent guests on the kitchen table.

It is believed that the very first entrepreneurial Chinese tasted snakes. And if you ask a resident of China about whether it is possible to eat a viper, he will answer in the affirmative, since the most popular as food in China are poisonous snakes, which include representatives of the viper family.

In many places of Chinese catering, you can find dishes from this snake. The Chinese bring snake meat by stewing, as well as baking or frying it, to readiness for use. There are a lot of ways to cook.

Among the most popular among tourists, and even the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom, dishes can distinguish a dish called " Dragon battle with tiger", Such a memorable name is soup made from viper and cat meat.

In South and Central America, cooking snakes for food is considered a routine. Accordingly, snake meat is cooked no less diverse than in China.

Interestingly, until the eighteenth century, snakes, namely vipers, were used in cooking in France. At the same time, the trade in snakes of the viper family was supervised by the state. Viper meat was popular among the French, since it was believed that its use in food beneficially affects the body and appearance. Due to the relatively low calorie content, meat was included in the diet of diet-conscious people.

Could everyone eat a viper in France? Since the circulation of vipers was under the watchful eye of the authorities, and only doctors and pharmacy owners were allowed to trade them, only those who could afford to purchase them were eating vipers.

Today, vipers in France are not in demand, and frogs have long been considered the most famous French delicacy.

We believe that many, when reading this material, will have a question about whether it is possible to cook and eat a viper at home. If you have an adder, then freshening it up and cooking it will be easy.

As we noted above, the process of preparing a viper begins with cutting off her head. Then you need to pull off the skin from the snake, good, snake skin is removed very easily. To clean the carcass without skin, it is necessary to cut the carcass so as not to break off the ribs, because later fragments can spoil the pleasure of eating. The snake carcass cleared from the insides must be cut into pieces 4-5 cm wide, and then placed in boiling salt water for four minutes. Then the pieces are transferred to a pan with boiling oil and fried until tender.

Also, at home from vipers you can cook soup with cereals, or pickle viper meat with onions. With the right approach, viper meat is quite tasty and is not inferior to the usual traditional varieties on the Russian market.

We believe that on this story about whether it is possible to eat a viper, it should be completed. However, if you still have questions, or have something to add to the above, we will be happy to receive from you the appropriate

Snake meat  refers to exotic products, and not everyone will decide to try it. The first to try this product were the people of China. You can eat both non-toxic and poisonous reptiles.  The best considered meat from females. Caught snakes are first killed, removed their heads, drained of blood and skinned. Many people compare the taste of snake meat with chicken.

Beneficial features

The benefits of snake meat are its chemical composition. In large quantities, this product contains proteins that are important for normal life. It has been proven that snake meat has a positive effect on potency, vision and blood circulation.  Helps this product normalize blood pressure. Residents of Asia believe that snake meat helps to maintain youth and improve skin condition. This product is considered an excellent restorative and tonic. It’s also worth mentioning that snake meat is dietary,  therefore, it cannot ruin the figure. This product has a positive effect on the activity of the cardiovascular system. It contains snake meat vitamins A, E and group B, which is important for metabolism and for the functioning of the nervous system. Due to the rich mineral composition, this product, improves appetite, has a positive effect on the activity of the liver and pancreas.

Cooking use

Snake meat is not so popular in our country, it is very loved in Asia. There, in almost every restaurant there is a dish made from this product. Snake meat can be subjected to various heat treatments:  stew, bake, cook, fry, etc. Some people prefer pickled meat or deep-fried meat. Snakes are ideally combined with onions and mushrooms. On the basis of such meat, you can cook a huge number of dishes: soups, appetizers, side dishes, salads, etc. Serve snakes in combination with sauces, herbs and spices.

When, many, many years ago, I went to an American high school. A classmate told me and other guys a funny story, in his opinion. One weekend, his father, a well-known and respected doctor in the city, invited guests to barbecue and offered them snake meat strung on skewers, resembling small pieces of fish. It was served with potato salad and plenty of beer.

Eating snake meat, snake dishes, a recipe for breaded rattlesnake snacks, boiled pickled snakes with rice, cobra a la Pol Pot recipe. Extreme cuisine.

Everyone really decided that it was a fish, although there was something in the barbecue and something from the chicken, though it was harsh. Everyone liked the taste, and many did not refuse the supplement. After eating, the doctor announced that he had cooked, and everyone was happy to eat ... a rattlesnake. Telling this story, my friend literally rolled with laughter, especially in the place when some of the guests rushed to the toilet, where they vomited safely.

Fortunately, many Americans have since expanded their gastronomic interests. Today, rattlesnakes not only appear on the menu of many restaurants, but also serve as homemade food. They are cooked in the form of a barbecue in the American Southwest, where snake meat tasting has also become a popular tourist attraction. Nevertheless, snake meat dishes did not become familiar on the table of Euro-Americans. In Asia, the situation is completely different. There snakes are truly gastronomic queens (and at least princesses in a significant territory of Africa and Latin America). For me it became quite obvious during my stay in Guangzhou, a real mecca of culinary adventurers, located only a few hours drive from Hong Kong.

There I visited one of the most famous institutions of the city, with the clumsy name “Snake King Completely & Restaurant” (literally “Snake-Queen and Restaurant”), a pleasant place like a large diner where customers were offered (I swear that was not exaggerating, since I personally rewrote it the only, and therefore extremely worn over the years menu in English that I was not allowed to take with me) seventy-five snake meat dishes! Live snakes were kept in cages on the first floor, and upon receipt of the order they were delivered to the second floor, to the kitchen, where they were freshly eaten and gutted.

And then they cut the meat in portions, cubes, thin plates along or across, stuffed or rolled into rolls or balls, then they baked, salted, steamed, cooked, fried in oil and deep-fried, stewed, cooked in a pot, in paper or served raw (chopped as sashimi) with rice, noodles, a variety of vegetables, spices and herbs, as well as other sources of animal protein. Including meat, quail, abalone and silkworm larvae. Feline meat, as I was told, was not available, although one of its sources, before my eyes, walked confidently between the tables and picked up the fallen pieces.

However, I was assured that there are all seventeen types of snake wine listed on the menu, as well as steamed fish lips with green bamboo shoots, baked fish offal, pork blood and bone marrow with chives, as well as something called “Beef butter with flower rolls ”- stunned by the choice, I forgot to ask what it is. I decided to stop at the baked snake meat “with a special sauce”, which tasted like sweet soy, on a fried snake with vegetables and a glass of Five Snakes wine. The meat looked like chicken (what else!), And the wine looked like tequila and also burned the throat. I quickly managed to learn how to handle thin snake ribs that looked like fish bones.

In this restaurant I turned out to be the only guilo ("overseas devil") and was for other visitors no less exotic than for me - the menu of the institution. Several people suggested I skip a glass at their table. So I learned the taste of wine from the testicles and five animals, dark in color, with a frightening sediment, prepared using the genitalia of a deer, a bull, a ram, a dog and a snake and not as strong as wine from snakes alone. “Ganbei!” Exclaimed my new friends, which in Mandarin dialect means “empty glass,” that is, “drink to the bottom.” Then they poured me more and more ...

From time immemorial, snakes have been included in the diet of the inhabitants of South China, especially in Guangdong province (the capital is Guangzhou), where snake meat was glorified by a sage from the time of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. 25) named Liu An, he said: "How no matter how good the southerner’s meal of snake meat is, the rest of China will not appreciate it. ” Later, snake meat gained popularity in the north, it was mentioned in the description of the famous feast of the emperors of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), a 196-course gluttonous culinary marathon, which, they say, lasted three days.

Snakes are usually eaten in the cool season, that is, from the end of September to March: the Chinese believe that the meat of a snake that has hibernated is especially tasty. In addition, the snake is correlated with a positive, bright male principle - yang, the opposite of a negative and dark female principle - yin. The Chinese believe that snake meat (along with many other exotic foods) “heats” the blood. Be that as it may, good snake meat is offered to all year round, and its presence or absence is determined only by demand.

In the Snake King Completely & Restaurant, demand is year-round, as in the village of Lemat, which is located five kilometers north of Hanoi. People from generation to generation come there to eat snakes. In the eateries located along the bumpy street, you will be offered other outlandish dishes, including porcupine, lizards and raccoon, however it is the signs with the inscription “Tit wounds” (“Snake meat”) that attract the most: people want to feel the healing properties of this suborder reptiles.

Imagine yourself as a visitor to one of these places. You sit down at the table, and after a minute an individual of the selected species is brought to you - connoisseurs prefer cobra. She, still alive, is immediately washed in front of you in a basin of water, then one of the two staff members holding the snake makes an incision on her abdomen, a snake heart pops out of it and falls on the plate, where it continues to beat. Blood is poured into a glass and mixed with snake wine, which is prepared from rice whiskey and fermented bodies of several snakes. The last heart is lowered into the glass. A drink is offered even before you place your order. One of the dishes in an exquisite Chinese manner is called "South of the Five Ranges with fresh balls of snake meat." Is it possible to refuse this?

Many, however, refuse. Since ancient times, man does not have warm feelings for snakes. Is it not in the form of a snake that the devil appeared to the first people in the Garden of Eden? Didn't the viper kill Cleopatra? Snakes strike terror into the hearts of heroes and viewers of hundreds of movies. Science claims that out of about 2,400 species of snakes, 200 are deadly to humans. Try to figure out which one can kill you and which one can’t. Almost all snakes, both poisonous and non-poisonous, are edible. Asian cobras, South American anacondas, European garden, North American rattlesnakes ... Snake venom is only in her head, and therefore meat can be eaten without fear of poisoning. Almost everything is involved. Blood and bile are used to make healthy drinks. Meat is a rich source of protein. A crispy snack is prepared from the skin (deep-fried), shoes, purses and belts are also sewn from it.

The gastronomic virtues of snakes are most valued. “Today, people can afford it,” says Yip Kwokleung, owner of one of Hong Kong's specialized restaurants. “They no longer consider snake meat dishes as something exceptional, but consider them as ordinary as oatmeal.” At Kwokleung’s establishment, a cup of snake soup costs less than $ 2, and at Snake King Completely more than $ 10 only dishes that are prepared with the addition of turtle or cat meat. A wide range of prices for snake wine. In 1998, at Hanoi Airport, I gave $ 40 for a half-liter bottle of cobra wine, and three years later in Hanoi and Saigon I saw twice as much bottles, which cost four times cheaper.

Actually, the meat of snakes is almost everywhere offered at a very reasonable price. In Jakarta, after eating a dish of cobra meat cooked in three different ways (satay, baked and fried in oil with vegetables), I bought a few packs of meat of the same cobra, but dried and crumbled, for use as seasonings. In general, a dinner for two, including snake wine with blood and beating hearts, cost me less than $ 10. In Europe, the use of snakes in cooking also has a long history, although a hundred years ago the level of their consumption decreased significantly. The Gastronomic Larussa provides the following information:

  “Until the 18th century, viper meat was very popular in France due to its beneficial effects on health and appearance ... Madame de Sevine, who received the title from Poitou, advised her daughter to go on a“ viper diet ”once a year.

The recipes of that time are varied. The viper can be freshened up and gutted, after which, if desired, cook with herbs, stuff capon with it, boil broth, make aspic, make butter, etc. Louis XIV controlled the sale of viper meat - he granted the right to sell it only to doctors and pharmacists ” .

Snake meat is enjoyed not only by weekend extremes and the middle class. In the 90s of the last century, only Hong Kong restaurants, satisfying local demand, imported about 50 thousand snakes annually. In the American West, there were at least 50 restaurants offering rattlesnake steaks and chili sauce to their customers. No fewer were in some Asian cities (not to mention Chinese), where large Chinese communities settled. The situation is different in the jungles of Equatorial Africa, Central and South America, as well as in rural areas of Southeast Asia, where snakes are an unremarkable product, consumed not as something special, but everyday, if available, along with the meat of monkeys and rodents , with larvae and insects.

Here and there in Latin America, “rattlesnake salt” at least once a day sprinkles other dishes. To prepare it, the snake (rattles and everything else) is finely cut and covered with salt. Six months later, dried meat is discarded, and what remains is used as salt. In addition to cooking on skewers or on the grill - the most common methods - both in Asia and in many parts of Africa and both Americas, they usually cook soup or make a stew from snake meat. Which are sometimes difficult to distinguish, since the ingredients can be the same, the difference is only in the amount of water. Sometimes soups (stews) - often in tropical areas - are seasoned with arrowroot, rice, tapioca, and other starchy foods. In other places, snake meat is simply boiled with vegetables and seasonings.

Recipe for a breaded rattlesnake snack.

Kill the snake and hang it by the tail for an hour, having previously cut off its head. Refresh and gut. Cut into pieces, which are then soaked for 2 hours in milk. Roll the pieces in cornmeal or breadcrumbs, or in a mixture thereof. Deep-fry. Serve with hot Louisiana sauce, texas pepper sauce or tartar sauce.

Pickled kite cooked with rice.

Refresh the snake and cut its meat into chopsticks with chopsticks. Sliced \u200b\u200bin a mixture of soy sauce, garlic, ginger and bourbon whiskey. Then put the meat on partially cooked rice and continue cooking until both are cooked.

Recipe - Cobra a la Pol Pot.

The female cook from Pailin flashed a white-toothed smile, tapped the boiling cauldron with a scoop and said.

"I was preparing a cobra for Pol Pot." Continuing to stir the cooking, she dictated the recipe, as if reading from the Khmer Rouge cookbook:

First, you need to kill the cobra. Then cut off her head and hang it out of the reach of children on a tree so that the poison dries in the sun. Express the blood into a cup and serve with white wine. Finely chop the cobra meat and mashed with a handful of peanuts. Add boiling water, grape leaf, lemon grass and ground yellow ginger. Simmer for one hour. It turns out a serving for one person. ”

Based on the book "Extreme Cuisine".
  Jerry Hopkins.

Story

In the XXI century, when you will not surprise anyone with exotic dishes, many continue to treat snake meat with distrust. However, in terms of the amount of minerals, it significantly exceeds other types of meat.

Snake dishes were the first to come to the table in the last centuries BC, perfected for centuries and become delicious delicacies of many peoples of Southeast Asia.

Cooking methods

Despite the fact that many snakes are poisonous, people are willing to risk their lives to get their meat. Even the most venomous snake after processing turns into the most delicate delicacy. To prepare a snake, it must be put to death, then cut off the head, drain the blood and skin. After it can be cut into portioned pieces. To taste, snake meat is very similar to chicken.

For obvious reasons, there is no snake meat dish in Russian cooking, but in the East, whole shows are made from the preparation of such dishes. In general, the method of preparing a snake depends only on the imagination of the cook. It is good in any form. The most popular meat is cobra and rattlesnake. The best snake meat is female meat.

The methods of cooking snakes are striking in their variety: they are baked, salted, steamed, boiled, fried, stewed and even served raw with rice, noodles and various sauces and spices. Snake meat can be pickled in wine with ginger and herbs - this will emphasize its exotic taste. Snakes go well with mushrooms and onions. They are even cooked on the grill and deep-fried. Very original soups made from snake meat with the addition of a large number of spices.

The most sophisticated snake dish, according to Chinese gourmets, is the "battle of the dragon with the tiger." This is a soup of snake meat and specially fattened cat meat. Very unusual dishes of breaded snakes. To do this, cut the meat into pieces, roll in corn flour and deep-fried. If you pickle the snake in soy sauce and then stew with rice, you get a truly Chinese dish, which should be eaten with chopsticks.

The Chinese believe that the meat of a snake that has hibernated is especially tasty and healthy.

No less useful is the blood of snakes. It is drunk raw, added to various drinks, and used as a base in tonic cocktails.

Beneficial features

Snake meat is not only tasty, but also very useful, as it is rich in proteins and various salts. It increases potency, improves vision, blood circulation and reduces pressure. Old people in Asia eat snakes for longevity, and young girls love snake dishes, because they believe that this will make their skin smoother.

Snake meat and blood are excellent tonic agents, which also significantly improve potency. They are also considered an effective aphrodisiac and restorative.

Interesting Facts

In France, until the XVII century, snake meat was very popular, as it was believed that it has a beneficial effect on health and appearance. The notorious Madame de Sevigne, who received the title of Marquise from Poitou and described in "The Adventures of Angelica", advised her daughter to go on a "viper diet" one month in a year.

Calorie snake meat

Calorie snake meat -   93 kcal.

There are a lot of ways to cook such a delicacy as snake meat, and the choice of recipe mainly depends on the type of snake. Soups, kebabs and barbecue dishes are prepared from reptiles, stewed and baked with vegetables, and some peoples of the world can eat raw flesh of snakes.

Carcass cutting

If the snake was only caught and still alive, then it needs to be killed. To do this, the animal is taken for the head with two fingers so that it does not bite, put on the board and cut off this very head. Some cooks suggest hanging a headless tail snake for an hour and a half. This is to ensure that all blood flows out of it. Incidentally, in some countries, snake blood is drunk raw. Then the body of the killed snake is rinsed under running water several times.

After that, the skin is incised along the body in order to take out the insides and refresh the carcass (remove the skin). Again, it is easier to peel the meat from the skin under water, while the flesh is washed immediately. They try to remove the whole skin, since it can also be used to prepare some dishes. At the end of the body, the skin is removed more heavily, so you can use a knife. After the final separation of the flesh of the snake from the skin, everything is thoroughly washed again - both skin and meat.

After all the manipulations done, cutting the belly of the snake, the intestines and other entrails are removed from it. It is necessary to clean the abdominal cavity well so that there are no black films left in it, since after preparation they can be bitter. After separating the viscera, the carcass is again washed with running water.

Ways to cook snake meat

Snakes are eaten in different ways, depending on the type of reptile they eat. Not all snakes are edible, so it is important to know which ones are not.

Here are some of the most popular snake recipes:

Fried snake

This is one of the simplest and most common dishes of Asian cuisine. Cooking it will not be difficult even for the most inexperienced culinary specialists. Even if the snake was poisonous, there is no need to fear that a person could be poisoned by eating the meat of such an animal. All poison is contained only in the head, which the snake loses at the very beginning of cutting, as described above. Before cooking, many cooks prefer to soak snake meat - in milk or white dry wine, to eliminate the specific smell of this reptile meat.

Before frying the meat, you need to add to it spices that are selected to taste. According to the recipe of classic Asian cuisine, for example, it is proposed to rub pieces (5-6 cm) of meat with soy sauce and cloves, salt is not added, since the sauce already contains it. Fry the meat in vegetable oil until a golden hue appears. Served to the table with vodka or other strong drinks, without rice or potatoes, that is - without a side dish.

Snake soup

It is considered a very tasty and healthy dish. But you have to cook it long enough - you need to cook snake meat for about 10 hours in a large volume of water (5-6 l). So much time is required for the meat to become usable, otherwise it will be tough and "rubber". By the time the meat is ready, the water should boil about two-thirds.

When the snake is ready, it is removed from the broth and cut into small circles, one centimeter thick. Chicken fillet, cut into small pieces, is added to the broth in parallel, brought to a boil and the foam is removed with a slotted spoon. Then the snake meat is again placed in the broth and salted. From seasonings, add cloves, cinnamon and coriander. This soup is served with bread, smeared with soy sauce.

Deep-fried snake meat

Fried snake meat and deep-fried. The meat must be chopped as described above, then it must be soaked for two hours in milk. Soaked meat cut in large pieces should be rolled in corn flour or chopped breadcrumbs and deep-fried. This dish is served with hot sauces (chili, wasabi) for beer or other low-alcohol drinks.

There are a lot of recipes for making snake meat, and especially a lot of them in Asian cuisine. Many videos about how snakes are eaten in traditional restaurants and on the streets in Asian countries have become popular and attract more and more gourmets to the camp of snake meat lovers, which is famous for its unusual taste and healing properties.