Tips on how to eat the still beating heart of a cobra

Here’s your chicken’s foot, enjoy. I poked at the ugly thing . It was wrinkled and tasted like salty rubber. Very chewy. Then I noticed my host at this Hong Kong restaurant did not have a chickens foot. I asked him why I had a chicken’s foot and he didn’t. He said “I wouldn’t eat one of those nasty things.” I learned a valuable lesson in Asian quisine that day. In the future, I always asked if my host would join me in eating the delicacy they had selected.

In 1992 I was in a Chinese restaurant in Taipei, Taiwan with my distributor Stuart. This was his girlfriend’s restaurant. He picked up the menu and asked if I liked snake? I said I don’t know, what type of snake? He said snake penis. I did not know that snakes had penises. Learning from my Hong Kong experience I asked him if he would eat snake penis. He said he would eat snake penis and placed an order with the waitress. A few minutes later it arrived. A bowl of peanuts for a snack. I was never so happy to see a bowl of peanuts. Over time I became a kung foo chopstick master and could pick up greasy peanuts with my chopsticks.

Another unique food item that I have eaten is blowfish commonly known as fugu in Japan. Fugu is deadly poisonous if it is not prepared correctly. There is a vein that must be removed very carefully by a certified fugu expert. The first time I had fugu was in a tiny restaurant in southern Japan with my good friend and painting contractor – the Mook. The Mook had the first in car GPS I hand ever seen. This was 1992. He explained that it could direct him anywhere he wanted to go. I asked if he had the addresses of his key customers in his GPS. He said no, I only have the addresses of my favorite golf courses in my GPS. Now that is technology. I inquired as to the skills of the fugu chef. I was told that the 72 year old mother of the restaurant owner was the fugu chef. The intriguing part of eating fugu is the tingle in your lips from the tiny bit of poison that is always present. Twenty years later I returned to the same restaurant with the Mook. My host once again ordered fugu. It was as good as the first time I had it. After dinner I asked who was the fugu chef now. The owner said it was still her mother who is now 92 years old. I am glad she still has a steady hand.

Now on to the cobra heart story. This adventure takes place in Hanoi, Vietnam. I looked out the window of the plane as we approached the Hanoi airport and I noticed a series perfectly round ponds leading up to the runway. When I asked my distributor what the ponds were for at the airport, he said they were fish farms. I asked why there were fish farms so close to the airport. He said they were courtesy of the US B52 saturation bombing of the airport in the early 1970’s. The ponds were bomb craters from the Vietnam war.

Other remnants of the Vietnam conflict can be seen in the Hanoi war museum. It is full of our stuff that we left behind. There are tanks, planes, guns and displays full of flight helmets of all the US pilots that were shot down. Other parts of the museum told the story of hundreds of years of fighting with Thailand, Cambodia and China. The Vietnamese have been in a constant state of war for centuries so when the French and then the Americans came it was just another day. The North Vietnamese referred to South Vietnam as the puppet government of the American Imperialistist. When they saw the American’s arrive with their air conditioners and Coca Cola they knew they had already won the war. I climbed through the Cu Chi tunnels in Saigon. This is miles of tunnels dug under the nose of the Americans. They were complete with a hospital, cafeterias, command post, bunks and pits full of poison pungie sticks for the unwary.

I visited the Hanoi Hilton where senator John McCain was a guest. This prison was built by the French to jail the Vietnamese. When the French were driven out the Vietnamese used it to jail the Americans. John McCain’s flight suit and the picture of the 16 year old girl that captured him is on display. Hanoi is a city of lakes and John McCain had the misfortune of parachuting into a lake in the middle of the city.

In the old part of Hanoi that was not bombed back into the stone age there are restaurants that specialize in Cobra. Many years ago someone asked the insightful question – “how many snakes fit in a basket.” I do not know why they asked that question but I can tell you that the answer is a lot. I saw this first hand in Hong Kong. There was a long line of men standing in the street in the electronic district. I was curious and noticed a basket of snakes on the sidewalk. Each man bought a snake and the proprietor cut open the snakes belly to reveal the gall bladder. Each man in turn ate the gall bladder and tossed the rest of the snake in a trash can.

In Vietnam none of the snake is wasted. You enter the restaurant and there are several baskets of cobras on the floor. The answer to the question is there are hundreds of cobras that fit in a basket. For our group of eight we selected four cobras of different colors. The snakes are pulled from the basket with tongs and then the fangs are ripped out so they will not bite the cooks. We are shown to our table and I am advised that the first part of the cobra that will be brought to the table are the hearts. I ask my host if he will eat the hearts? He says yes but all the other guests decline. I am hoping that several cocktails can be consumed before the hearts arrive. No such luck. Immediately a plate of four still beating cobra hearts appear. Correction, three are beating and one is not. My host suggests the waiter bring in the paddles to resuscitate the non beating heart. The next step is to pick up a still beating cobra heart with chopsticks and drop it into a shot glass of brandy and cobra blood. Down the hatch.

A problem would arise if after eating the still beating heart of a cobra you would be rushed to the hospital. The doctor would check your heart beat with a stethoscope and then hear a second heart beat in your stomach. He would think you are the first man in history to be pregnant.

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