I know a lot of people are disgusted by the thought of eating snake meat, but based on my experience it tastes pretty good and isn’t anything that far from the ordinary. This said, I only ate one kind of snake… just one time.
My experience with eating snake comes from my time traveling the south of Vietnam back in 2019.
I took a tour of the Mekong delta area and during this tour, after getting to see how the locals still trade produce out on the water between their boats (not the fake tourist stuff you see in Thailand), we stopped at a place along the water to eat.
I’ve only got one picture of the snake that I ate, unfortunately.
The part where they took the snake by the tail and whipped it against a concrete wall will be forever lost in time. But that’s how they did it. Pretty brutal the way it looked, but I suppose the snake’s head was whipped so fast that it would likely have been just as humane as if they had chopped off the head.
Here’s a picture of the snake in the hot coals. And yes, they threw the body on the coals, underneath the grill part for some reason.
Also, you can see that it hadn’t yet been skinned in the picture. After killing the snake it was immediately cooked and was still squirming around as it began to roast on the coals – definitely not a sight for the squeemish.
Again, I wish I would have taken better notes and pictures, but I suppose they removed the skin after cooking it because I definitely didn’t notice any scales in there when chewing, which I suppose would be obvious.
It seems like it would be harder to remove the skin after cooking because it would likely be dry and would break easily, but this must be how it had been done.
I also am lacking pictures of the final presentation. But I can tell you that they chopped it up into bite-sized pieces.
The taste
It was nothing too strange or too unusual really, which is why I’d suggest giving it a try if you get the chance.
For example, out of cow tongue, dog meat, caiman, armadillo, and tortoise, the snake was probably the most ‘normal’ tasting. I could probably have put some on someone’s plate and told them it was chicken and they wouldn’t think too much of it.
There was little to no fat as you can probably imagine, and I compared it to the taste of chicken breast in a way… but drier than most chicken breasts I’ve had. This could be due to the method of cooking, however.
Texture
It was dry and a bit tough, but not as tough as I was expecting.
This makes me wonder: was this particular snake brought up in captivity or was it wild-caught?
As you probably know, wild game is usually tougher, largely due to the muscles doing a lot more work on a daily basis in order to survive, vs captive animals who often sit in their cages and move about minimally, which leads to soft/weak muscle tissue.
It also helped that the meat was cut into small pieces, making it very easy to chew and the toughness less noticeable.
Recommended or no?
I would absolutely recommend giving snake meat a try if you’re on the fence but interested.
In the future, I plan on trying other types of snakes as well. Then I’ll have a better picture of the variety of tastes and textures this type of meat offers.
As for now, I only have one to go by.
