Britain has never been known for its fantastic cuisine. In fact, the island nation is often the butt of jokes from foodies everywhere. That being said, the British have certainly upped their food game since the early days of the Empire. Today, the U.K. is practically a foodie’s paradise. Long gone are the days of only having bland and frankly disgusting dishes to choose from, like viper soup.
Yep, that used to be a thing…
Here’s what a bowl of viper soup looks like today if you can find one of the rare establishments that still serves it. Sorta makes you hungry, right?
A cookbook from the mid-1700s offers this recipe for making viper soup:
1.) Take vipers, alive, skin them, and cut off their heads.
2.) Then cut them in pieces, about two inches in length. Boil them with their hearts, in about a gallon of water to eight vipers, if they’re large.
3.) Put pepper, salt, and a quart of white wine into the liquid.
4.) Then put in some spice, to your mind, and chop the following herbs to put in it: chervil, white beet cards or leaves, hearts of cabbage lettuce, a shallot, some spinach leaves, and some succory.
5.) Boil these, and let them be tender.
6.) Then serve it up hot, with a French roll in the middle.
7.) Garnish with the raspings of bread sifted, and slices of lemon.
Geeze, that sounds like the most brutal soup ever. Surprisingly, though, that’s not the only old-timey British dish featuring snakes.
A British wedding cake recipe from 1660 also features chopped snakes as an ingredient. I think I’m gonna be sick…
(via Reddit)
Alright, that is seriously gross. I’m very happy that British people have decided to abandon chopped snake dishes in favor of meat pies and curry.