Seoul Food

A pick-me-up ? Try python

Foreign tourists seeking a quick snack in downtown Seoul are unlikely to find satisfaction in the Korean equivalent of American fast-food chains. These are the 400 eateries specializing in a local delicacy: snake. Among the potables on their bills of fare are bottles of a vodka-like liquor in which live serpents have been put to steep. Another quick pick-me-up is whisky fortified with powdered python. Also on the menu is tang, thick, pale yellow serpent soup. To tempt appetites, restaurateurs feature window displays of writhing snakes in glass bowls.

In a bid to make Seoul more attractive to the tourists, the city council has strongly urged owners of snake snack shops to remove their operations from downtown boulevards to the alleys and byways of the Korean capital. Though the shift may reduce the risk of cardiac arrest for visiting herpetophobes, it has annoyed Koreans who regard snakes not only as nourishment for the body but also as a stimulant for the sex drive and a cure for a variety of ills. "I was shocked to hear the news," said one shop owner of the city council's proposal. "The snakes may not be a pleasant sight, but many foreigners show great interest in them. The value of the snake as medicine is beyond description."

Snake dishes do not come cheap. A bowl of ordinary snake soup costs from $20 to $160, depending on the type of reptile used, and advocates of reptile recipes say that one must consume at least a bowl a day for ten days to obtain any discernible lift of the libido. Vipers, which are especially recommended for people suffering from neuralgia and tuberculosis, cost $140 each. The yellow python, valued as an all-purpose tonic, costs $200, while the most precious serpent of all, the paik-sa, or albino snake, celebrated for assuring longevity, has been known to bring from $4,000 to $6,000. Though that is about four times the average Korean's annual income, snake devotees believe the albino is a bargain: the typical 1 1/2 ft.-long paik-sa, when tastily boiled and simmered, is claimed by Korea's version of snake-oil salesmen to add years to the life of the intrepid consumer. qed

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