Today was such a long and hard but very interesting day. I went with the crew of Fine Cuisine program to make a new episode about snake dishes in Le Mat village. The village was not far from the city center and easy to reach by various kinds of vehicles including cars, motorbikes. We went there by a car of the national television and joined in the festival before tasting different kinds of snake dishes.
In the snake festival, people gathered at the front yard of the village’s temple to participate in many exciting activities, some of which were snake dance, scent offering ceremony, traditional games and the like. The most impressive part of the celebration was the snake dance which symbolized the legend of a village’s hero killing a poisonous snake to save a princess a long time ago. The dancers differed in age which rage from about 20 years to over 80 years.
After the festival, I got to a nearby snake restaurant called Ran Rao. The host, Mr. Lap, took us inside his newly-built areas of the restaurant and introduced us several types of snake dishes. I followed him to watch how the snake was prepared. I even got a chance to hold the snake in my hands and carried it around my neck. It appeared that I looked like a professional snake catcher. More remarkably, Mr. Lap killed the snake and gave me its beating heart to swallow. At first I was a little bit afraid but after just a few seconds I got calmer and finished swallowing the fresh heart easily.
Mr. Lap also took me to the kitchen and guided me about how he cooked the meal. He made 3 main snake dishes for me which were sauté snake with chili and lemongrass; snake cake with La Lot leaf, and snake barbecue. All the dishes were very delicious. The sauté snake tasted a bit chewy but buttery and very tasty. The Snake cake with la lot leaf was tender and seemed to melt in my mouth. The snake barbecue was also very good and moreish. During the meal, I drank little sips of alcohol with snake blood. It was a bit hot, bitter and tart but very nice and memorable.
I was so full after finishing all the snake dishes that I got for the first time. I decided to come back to the village sometimes in the future to enjoying them with my family and friends.