Long a winter delicacy, snake soup is going out of favor in Hong Kong, and the coming Year of the Snake is unlikely to help the chefs that make it.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00From a wooden drawer, Chow Ka Ling pulls out a large snake, deftly controlling it as it
00:06tries to squirm away.
00:08Chow is known as Hong Kong's Snake Queen, both for her skills at catching serpents on
00:13the loose and for the fact she keeps them on the menu.
00:17In parts of East Asia, including Hong Kong, snake soup is a delicacy thought to fortify
00:22the body through the cold months.
00:24And since 1965, Chow's family has owned this eatery, appropriately called Snake King, serving
00:30up snake soup winter after winter to the masses.
00:35Over the decades, the business has had to adapt.
00:38One big change came with tougher public health rules following the 2003 SARS outbreak, thought
00:44to have jumped to humans from live wild animals.
00:47Today, the snake meat all comes frozen from Southeast Asia.
00:52The three resident snakes, Chow says, are just pets, kept for visitors to take photos
00:56with.
00:58But changes are still coming, and while the shop still has its loyal fans, snake meat
01:02is definitely out of favour.
01:05There are signs Hong Kong could be following the lead of Taipei, where the last specialty
01:09snake meat shop in the city's so-called Snake Alley closed in 2018.
01:22It's something regular diners at Chow's shop also see on the horizon.
01:52Concern for animal welfare and changing tastes both partly explain the decline of snake meat
01:56consumption.
01:58But some researchers say this is far from the full picture.
02:02SARS and COVID came up as one main reason, but then there's a variety of other reasons.
02:07Some would say that, well, there's some people that have some issues with or have potential
02:15environmental concerns about consuming wild meat, such as snakes and that type of thing.
02:20And then some also related it to climatic warming, where the weather is warmer, so
02:26people don't feel as cold and might not want to eat snakes as much.
02:32Chow Ka-ling says she's going to hold on for now.
02:35But she's one of a dwindling number of eateries still in the snake meat business, as aging
02:40chefs and falling demand see other shops shudder.
02:44It's a trend the coming year of the snake is unlikely to help reverse.
02:48James Lin and John Van Triest for Taiwan Plus.