Eating viper domba (2 of 2)

The following night, we went out for dinner with a local contact who wanted to learn more about upOwa. We had one of the most memorable meals of my life: viper domba.

Bafoussam! Its colors, its sounds, its smells (including pollution) fill the air

Viper in Cameroon is a dish used traditionally in initiatic ceremonies for men. Women were not allowed to eat, touch, or cook viper. Things have changed a little today, but I did not take any pictures out of respect. Interspersed throughout this piece are photos of Bafoussam instead. 

upOwa requires hard physical work...

You might be wondering how the viper goes from life in the forest to your dish. I certainly was. Our contact, Alain, had called up a hunter he knows in Southern Cameroon two days earlier. The hunter went out, laid a trap, and caught a viper, which he then half-killed. Alain then sent a driver to pick him up with an ice cooler, and the driver took hunter and viper up to Bafoussam, where the hunter hand-delivered to viper to Alain after driving over 10 hours.

So it's important to start with a light but hearty breakfast

Whatsapp and Canadian
driving school -- in Douala

In Bafoussam, Alain knew the one restaurant that knows how to prepare viper properly. It takes not only skill, but specific knowledge: a proper domba, the name of the dish, requires traditional herbs from the forest, that aren’t sold in cities. A restaurant needs to have personal connections to someone in a forest village who’ll know the proper herbs (we weren’t allowed to learn the dish’s ingredients) and will gather them for the dish. They have to be fresh, so restaurants can’t even stock these herbs.

Preparing the viper apparently goes beyond cooking the food: in Cameroon, every part of the viper that isn’t eaten is extracted and preserved for medicinal value. Alain swore that rubbing viper oil over his leg healed a bone fracture a year ago.

Bafoussam and its colorful chaos

Alain told us all this as we waited for the dish to be served. My excitement and hunger only grew with each new detail. When the cook brought out the dish, wrapped in special leaves, conversation quickly turned to how to unwrap and eat the snake. We undid the leaves, and uncovered braised snake, carefully cut into serving-size pieces.

I got a haircut -- sneak
preview of a next post!

Viper is truly delicious, and full of meat. Its texture is a mix between fish and chicken. When served in a domba, it is braised with wild forest herbs without using any grease, including the snake’s own which is extracted and saved. We savored the extraordinary meal and the unique opportunity to share such a dish with a Cameroonian friend who’d gone to such lengths to offer us this experience.