No, that’s not a typo. I really meant, “Snake for dinner.” Not “Steak for dinner.”
A python, for example.
You wouldn’t want to eat the entire snake, however. Not in one sitting, at least. Pythons can grow to 20 feet long and weigh up to 200 pounds.
According to certain researchers, python meat tastes like chicken. From this we might determine that certain researchers have a sense of humor. But it makes a certain culinary sense, if you believe the paleontologists who theorize that python-like snakes were eating dinosaurs 100 million years ago. And also, that chickens are the modern descendants of those same dinosaurs.
An article about eating snakes appeared yesterday in Science Reports, written by Dr. Daniel Natusch and some of his friends… all of whom, I presume, are scientists, since this is a science report. Much of the study also concerns snakes, eating. Like people, snakes have to eat, but unlike people, they don’t typically ‘overeat’. In fact, the snakes studied by Dr. Natausch and his friends could fast, without eating, for up to four months.
Makes me wonder what the snakes were doing with themselves, for four months. When I wake up in the morning, I have to make coffee and eat a hearty breakfast to get my day started. Then I have to eat lunch, and later dinner. With plenty of snacking, in between meals. And then a bowl of ice cream before bed. I would guess that I typically spend half my waking hours eating, or shopping for food, or preparing food, or thinking about food.
Now that I’ve read Dr. Datausch’s article, I will probably be thinking about what snake meat tastes like. (Yes, probably like chicken.)
The report begins with an “Introduction”, as these types of reports often do:
The raising of livestock is a cornerstone of human civilization, has underpinned the rise of global economies, and continues to play a central role in the well-being of people in many cultures…
The report doesn’t mention Pagosa Springs in particular, but the raising of livestock was certainly a cornerstone of civilization here in southern Colorado, once the ranchers arrived with their cows and sheep. But cows and sheep can’t last four months without eating. (Nor can I.)
Reading this report — which focused on Asian countries where snake meat is a delicacy — it became apparent that cattle ranching is entirely too much work, compared to snake ranching.
The researchers studied more than 4,600 pythons and found the snakes to be very efficient at “feed conversion” — the amount of feed needed to produce a pound of meat — compared to other farmed animals like chicken, beef, pork, and salmon. Even farmed crickets were less efficient at feed conversion than snakes. (And crickets don’t taste like chicken.)
The snakes in the study were fed a mix of locally-sourced food, including wild-caught rodents, pork byproducts, and fish pellets. They gained up to 1.6 ounces a day, with the females growing faster than their male counterparts.
“They need very little water. A python can live off the dew that forms on its scales. In the morning, it just drinks off its scales and that’s enough,” said Dr. Natusch in an interview. “Theoretically you could just stop feeding it for a year.”
Perhaps true, but somewhat cruel.
The scientists were particularly looking at pythons, because the world is getting warmer due to climate change. Pythons like to be warm. I guess we all do.
Something I didn’t know. Burmese pythons are considered an invasive species in the U.S. and are proliferating in Florida’s Everglades. In a study last year, the U.S. Geological Survey described Florida’s python problem as “one of the most challenging invasive species management issues worldwide.”
I hope the people in Florida read Dr. Natausch’s report, and come to the conclusion that snakes are delicious. They might be able to eat their way out of their problem.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.