Eating a snakes heart in Hanoi
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Eating a snakes heart is not for the faint hearted; in fact you really should be aware of exactly what goes on before making the trek out to the renown village, 15 kilometers from Hanoi. I made the trip yesterday with a Contiki group where my mate was the tour leader. About 12 of us jumped on a mini van in the Old Quarter and headed out to Le Mat village.
The restaurant setting is very nice indeed but the festivities are somewhat different. Basically they bring a bunch of snakes out and present them too you, still very venomous. From there you can decide on your snake, it’s level of aggression an apparent sign of its tastiness. Being amateurs we opted for one of their choice. The process happens pretty quickly with the snake being brought out by a handler, its throat cut for the blood, followed by the bile and then lastly they rip out the still beating heart. The snake is then promptly taken away where everything, and I mean everything, is cooked to make 7 different dishes.
The snakes blood and bile is mixed with rice wine and served in shot glasses. The heart was presented to me still beating in a little white dish. After instruction I dropped the heart in the glass of snakes blood and downed it. It reminded me of many an oyster shot I have done but this time I decided not to chew. It wasn’t that bad but I could definitely taste the blood. They say you can feel it beating as it goes down your throat, which I didn’t, but without a doubt I could feel it lodged at the entrance to my stomach. Cheers!
The snake dishes were mediocre to say the least and at 200,000 VND a head it is not my number one for a culinary experience. Locals Vietnamese were flocking to the place though and by 12.30pm it was packed meaning that there was a lot of snake killing going on. Animal lovers to put it bluntly would hate this place. Some of the cobras they had were massive and at times we were less that a meter from the deadly creatures. After lunch and about 12 snake killings it was definitely time to go. It was an experience to say the least!
If you want to see a video of how they kill the snake check out my blog: http://teamfroz.blogspot.com/2010/02/eating-snakes-heart.html
2 responses to Eating a snakes heart in Hanoi
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Dan Harding said on February 18, 2010
People write about this because it is a part of Vietnamese culture. People write about it because it is different and will often gauge an opinion. That opinion can of course be negative.
Also as an expat living and working in Hanoi I think you have fallen well short on a number of your points which makes me think you are just a narrow-minded foreigner who finds it hard to accept the extremities of other cultures.
If the snake villages relied purely on the tourist dollar then they wouldn’t survive. When I went out to the village we were the only table of foreigners, the rest, about 10 large tables, all filled with locals.
I have lived here for 6 months and as a teacher I have had countless discussions with the Vietnamese about all the types of food they eat. More often than not they have explained to me the reasons they eat different foods, snake included, and when is an appropriate time to do so. All the males I have talked to have tried snake, some going there often. Many have repeatedly invited me to join them and their friends to the snake village.
The restaurant I went to farmed the snakes especially for eating, none as far as I am told are taken from the wild.
If after three years you have not been invited once it again makes me think you are just an intolerant foreigner who spends his spare time deeply embedded in the expat world instead of on street corners talking to locals and understanding their world.
Yes, the main meats the Vietnamese eat are pork, chicken and beef and yes you could write about them for years (I have already written a few articles on the food here; one a blog on matador travel) but that doesn’t change the fact that eating snake is part of the culture. After 6 months of writing about everything and anything in Hanoi I wrote an article on my interpretation of the snake experience.
I appreciate your comment and thank you for the time you spent writing it.
Kind Regards,
Bone Headed Drunk Idiot
Steve Jackson said on February 8, 2010
As an expat living and working in Hanoi can I say how sick I am of the following:
1. Bone headed drunks paying to be macho by eating snakes, snake blood, still eating snake hearts etc.
2. Equally stupid macho idiots writing about the above on their ill-informed blog so they can show off to their mates at home
3. Journalists also doing the above and kidding themselves that somehow they have found the “real Vietnam”
4. Dumb websites, newspapers etc reprinting it and therefor encouraging yet more macho prats to do the same.
This is why you shouldn’t do what the idiot to wrote this blog did:
1. You may think you are doing something uber traditional and whose to say the practice hasn’t gone back a few centuries, however, nowadays, it’s pretty much just for tourists. I’ve lived in this country for three years and I have never, not once, been asked to take part in something like this by a Vietnamese person.
2. Extreme eating is an incredibly dangerous practice in developing countries. It’s the same thought process that sees people pay large amounts for rare animals to eat. A new eating experience. “There’s hardly any of them left…heck then I better eat one now then.”
A great number of NGOs are investing large amount of money to try and change the above attitude of macho eating. And then idiots like these stroll into town and put their dollars on the table and think that eating part of an animal that is still not yet dead is somehow acceptable.
3. People in Vietnam eat many things but, meatwise, they mostly eat chicken, beef and pork. So…
4. Vietnam has incredible food that you could write about for years and still not cover every dish, recipe etc – so why waste your time on this? If you are a writer and you really care about writing something accurate regarding the country you are in then please don’t write about this snake heart crap. Go grab a bowl of Pho.
Matador travel…please get a little more picky in the crap you decide to highlight.