Habu is both feared and revered, but does it taste like chicken?

If you ever visit the islands of Amami and get chatting to one of the locals, there’s a good chance that the topic of conversation might turn to habu, a group of highly venomous snakes native to Okinawa and other islands in the Ryukyu chain.

▼ Amami Oshima is one of the islands in the Ryukyu chain, and it takes an hour by plane or 11 by ferry to get there from Kagoshima.

Both feared and revered, the habu can be seen not only out in the wild on these islands, but in a number of restaurants and homes in the area, where it’s eaten as a dish and drunk as an infused liquor.

On a recent trip to Amami Oshima, our reporter Ikuna Kamezawa found herself talking to a local who encouraged her to try the snake, directing her to Yanigawa Street, the second largest entertainment district in Kagoshima (the Amami islands are administered by Kagoshima Prefecture).

The number of restaurants and bars in this district is truly impressive, especially in terms of proportion to the local population. There are a few restaurants that serve habu dishes along Yanigawa Street but they can be hard to find if you’re not a local, so we were glad to have a trusted tip-off, which led us to a restaurant serving “fried habu” for 2,000 yen (US$13.98).

At 2,000 yen, this was a pricey dish, but as it’s not one you can get anywhere, the price is to be expected. So, with her hand trembling, Ikuna lifted the fried morsel to her mouth, trying to convince herself she was just eating a piece of fried fish.

Although the pieces had initially looked like snake heads, they were actually “crisply fried chest”. The first thing that surprised her about the snake was just how many bones it had, which was something she hadn’t been expecting.

▼ So…how did it taste?

Well, it tasted exactly like karaage (Japanese fried chicken).

She’d always heard that non-regular meat dishes have a tendency to taste like chicken, but she was surprised at just how similar it was. Perhaps the scarcity of meat in the morsel made it hard to make out any distinctive characteristics, so her taste buds could only identify it as fried chicken.

However, there  was a chewiness and springiness to the meat that definitely made it feel very habu-like, as the meat did not want to leave the bones easily.

If you were to simmer the bones, you’d probably make a pretty good broth out of them. However, with snake bone broth yet to become a trend, there are other dishes to try in the region, including simmered dishes that are much more diner-friendly.

So next time you’d like to step out of your comfort zone and try a new delicacy, you might want to strike up a conversation with a local. You never know what they might suggest you try, and if you speak to a cab driver, they’ll even take you to the best places in the region too!

Photos ©SoraNews24
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