Snakes on a Plate

The following post may cause some of you to lose your lunch.

Reader’s discretion is advised:)

In past years my Thanksgiving celebrations have included the usual: turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, and of course the occasional spat in the kitchen. When living overseas, they advise that you try not to recreate your traditions from home, because they usually end in disappointment. I was realistic enough to not set my expectations for this Thanksgiving too high. A turkey in this country can cost up to $100, and we don’t get any time off of school for the holiday anyway. The group of singles that has become my family this semester decided we would not attempt to recreate any traditions, but instead come up with a brand new one. In years past, people have tried to venture outside the box, eating turkey made out of tofu or enjoying a feast of Mexican food instead of the original Thanksgiving spread. Never before have I heard of anyone stepping this far out of the box. Thursday November 23, 2007, Jennie, Lindsey, Emma, Emily, Donna, Alyssa, Aaron and I ventured out in search of a restaurant that serves cobra...yes the snake. After a bit of an adventure and asking some locals for directions, we finally arrived at NAYA. I was expecting an environment similar to that of Indiana Jones with dim lighting, snake skins hanging from the ceiling, and maybe a snake charmer in the corner with his flute. It turned out to be a rather regular looking restaurant that just happened to have a cupboard in the back full of cobras awaiting their culinary destiny of being fried up and served with rice. We had heard from a fellow teacher that you could go in the back and actually see the snake that would eventually become your dinner. After ordering, we asked the waiter if we could and he agreed to take the eight bules (boo-lays) with cameras in hand to the back to see the snakes. We entered the small room next to the kitchen. To the right was the cupboard full of mesh bags that were full of 15-20 snakes. In the middle was the chopping block, or a stump on which the head of the snakes were removed. On the floor were two buckets: one for the guts and skins, the other for the actual meat of the snake. One of the men whipped out one of the three-foot-long cobras that, in the minutes before its death, hissed at jabbed at the hand holding it tight. He then put the cobra’s head in a vice-looking thing and with a large cleaver chopped off the head. The head was still moving as they squeezed the blood from the body of the snake into a cup. It really was a gruesome sight that I could hardly stomach. I did get pretty good pictures though. When we returned to our table, we were presented with two small shot glasses that contained the blood that had just been squeezed out. The blood was set on the Lazy Susan in the middle of the table and made its way to everyone. Aaron downed one of the glasses in one swift gulp while the rest of us squealed and gagged as we choked down a tiny sip. I was the last one to take a sip and after a few minutes of working to break down the mental block similar to what I had with the spicy woof woof, I was able to take a taste. The room temperature and the thickness made it difficult to convince myself I was consuming something other than blood. In the end, it tasted kind of like cough syrup. The actual snake wasn’t too bad, it wasn’t that good either. It tasted like chicken but the texture was more like fish. It was difficult to enjoy a meal after (1) witnessing the decapitation and (2) drinking the blood of your main course. We all sat there silently replaying the gruesome scene we had witnessed and questioning what the heck we had just eaten. I am pretty sure this is the most insane thing I have ever eaten! With the exception of Aaron, we had all gone in there sure we were not going to drink the blood, but darn that peer pressure, we all gave in and exceeded our personal limits of adventure eating!