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Hong Kong, China. A restaurant serves a popular and terrifying dish. It's the ultimate slithering snack, snake soup. Some believe snakes are medicinal. For thousands of years, Chinese diners have eaten snake soup to boost their immune systems. There's no scientific evidence to back up the claim, but believers swear by the serpent's extraordinary powers. The key ingredient to Chinese serpentine stew, venomous vipers, including cobra. Cobras are amazing alpha predators, magnificently adapted for survival and killing big prey. Cobras are the largest venomous snakes in the world. King
cobras can reach 17 ft. Their venom is notoriously toxic, enough to kill an African elephant or human being with a single bite. A spitting cobra can cause blindness and one chalk can cause lung collapsing suffocation. In a half hour, the victim is dead. Here outside the restaurant, handlers wrangle snakes into protective cages. The main ingredient is always ready to strike. But inside the restaurant, the snake charmer and chef is a courageous cook. Chiao Colleen is the only woman to receive Hong Kong's official appointment, snake catcher. But even for a pro, cooking with cobras can be life-threatening. Chowoing almost died. A bite from a king cobra put her in the hospital for a month.
Yet, the committed chef believes in her craft. Pulling snakes from storage cages and vaults, she's careful and confident, weighing, snapping snakes, skinning them, and removing deadly venom glands. Venom glands are located inside the snake's head, wedged between the eyes and jaw. roughly the size of a large jelly bean carrying about 30 drops of potent poison. Though swallowing venom isn't fatal, a lethal amount can enter a diner's bloodstream through a mouth cut or sore. Food prep with this dish is a vital precaution. Ciao sells 600 bowls of snake soup a day, cooking up an astonishing 1,800 snakes.
Fortunately, these serpents aren't endangered species, just a natural part of the food chain. Avid fans say the mildly, flavorful meat is delicious and makes a stomachwarming stew. One thing's certain, the ultimate slithering snack is a striking addition to any menu. Vancouver, Canada. This upscale grocery store sells the most soughtafter and scatological coffee in the world. The ultimate brew from the bowels of a beast. A deep, dark roast made from the droppings of a cat-like creature who's a coffee lover's dream. This exotic predator is no house cat.
It's a nocturnal hunter called an Asian palm civet. Similar to a raccoon, the palm civet isn't technically a feline, though it's sometimes called a totty cat. But when it comes to elimination, this unusual animal turns gross into gourmet. The secrets in the civot's diet, digestion, and excretion. Here's how it works. Palm civets frequently dine on coffee bean pods known as cherries. But only part of the coffee cherry becomes food. In the civet stomach, digestive enzymes break down the outer layers of the coffee cherry, stripping it of coffeey's typical acidic harshness. When the civet defecates, it leaves behind the partially digested beans, making it the world's most expensive and
caffeinated excrement. Coffee harvesters gather, cleanse, and roast the coveted civet droppings before they're shipped to coffee machines and gourmet stores around the world. Importers swear there's no danger of E.coli contamination. On the contrary, the brew called Kopi Lawak is considered the caviar of coffee. Kopi Lolwok is probably going to be the most gourmet expensive coffee you ever have a chance to drink. People who have drank this coffee say that it has an incredible nutty taste and that it's smooth and that it's not bitter and that there's some earthiness
that they can't put their finger on. Managua, Nicaragua, an edible commodity here is so popular it's even sold on the street. The long-tailed lizard known as the iguana. Fast, spiked, and steelied. To some, it's a scary, scaly pest. To others, it's the ultimate lizard lunch. Iguanas date back millions of years. Tropical iguanas hail from the Caribbean and South and Central America. With their spiky spines, distinctive markings, cool attitudes, and a taste for bugs. Iguanas make popular pets. But these rough skinned reptiles also make a healthy meal packed with protein. Indigenous people here have eaten iguanas for centuries.
Butchers prepare iguanas in markets, selling them by the dozen. Chefs first skin iguanas and remove the feet, tail tip, and head. Most recipes call for cooking iguanas whole, boiling and tenderizing muscular bodies packed with meat. And yes, iguana's tender white meat tastes like chicken. But it's their reputation for something else that appeals to men. Thanks to a double dose of penile sex glands tucked inside their pelvises, some believe iguana boosts male sexual prowess. Ongoing efforts to help protect this increasingly endangered species and their habitat will go a long way to making sure iguanas can be a thriving creature and part of the food chain for centuries to come. making this reptile repast the ultimate lizard lunch
she a restaurant specializes in prickly preparations insects and the main attraction scorpions the ultimate fearsome feast Kissing cousins to the spider, there are roughly 2,000 scorpion species on Earth. These amazing arachnid sport eight legs, two clawed pincers, and a barbed tail that's a lethal weapon. Located at the very tip of the sickle-shaped segmented tail, the venom barb draws from adjacent poison glands, scorpions use their stingers like hypodermic needles, controlling the exact amount of venom they inject into prey, using just what they need to do the deadly deed. In humans, the strongest scorpion venom can cause cardiac or respiratory failure.
But here, scorpion dishes are declared safe. Heat destroys the dangerous toxic proteins, and most patrons like their scorpion served up dead. Yet, some have a more daring appetite for live scorpion. To prepare live scorpion, the chef wields a secret weapon, alcohol. After removing poison glands and stinging barbs, he dousses the scorpions in rice wine, stunning and intoxicating them, giving diners the upper hand and making this traditional treat less of an assault on the anesthetized arachnid. As this brave patron prepares to take a bite, the scorpion will perish in his mouth. Though the snack packs less than 25
calories, it's a good thing this diner's a man. Pregnant women shouldn't ingest even a drop of dangerous scorpion toxin. For the boldest eaters at the table, the ultimate fearsome feast deserves
