Plate of Snake

During my quick beer after football on Thursday, the guys were eating snake again. They offered me some, which of course I accepted. I had my own portion this time, unlike before when I only tried a bit. The snake was served in three-inch portions, in the same spicy sauce as before, very nice, and served with a bread roll. I was watching everyone else keenly to work out how to eat it. It's mostly like eating ribs, because a snake is basically one long ribcage, I've discovered. I didn't eat the skin because it seemed too tough, and at first I thought no one else was either.

Wrong...

Some guys' plates just had a few rib bones and a spine by the time they'd finished. I didn't strip it clean quite as well, but I ate everything I could identify as meat.

Snake's pretty nice, thought having tried it again, it's not that like chicken. It has the same texture, and the flavour is similar, but also different. My hands also smelt of snake for the rest of the evening despite washing them several times, much to Heather's dismay.

I hope snake doesn't count as bushmeat, I've no desire to eat anything I shouldn't be, as Hev's already pointed out, These Cameroonians will eat anything, Asterix. Our guidebook seems to group snake as bushmeat, though this was in the context of a general comment about avoiding restaurants that serve 'exotic' meats. Snakes are fairly common in Cameroon (though not in Buea, the climate's too cool here), so I don't think they're endangered. I'm also not sure exactly what type of snake I was eating, it was referred to variously as 'Python', 'Viper' and just 'snake', so basically, who knows what I've been eating...