Cobras are mythological snakes in both Hinduism and Buddhism, and have been worshipped by many Hindus and Buddhists for thousands of years, not only setting up various snake temples to worship, but also having a place for cobras in various religious buildings every day. In contrast to the supernatural treatment in Thailand and parts of India, cobras living in Indonesia and the Philippines live a hellish life, and Indonesian and Filipino cobras are often sold as food or made into medicine by locals.
Indonesia has a large number of cobras, and many locals like to sell cobras as a specialty. In the Java region of Indonesia, locals like to sell cobras as barbecues and jerky. The snake killer will nail the cobra's snake head to the wooden block, cut off the snake's head with a knife, and then the snake killer will collect fresh snake blood into the vessel, the cobra's blood is considered to be a great tonic, so a drop of cobra blood will not be wasted, cutting off the cobra skin is a technical job, the best snake killer will cut off the cobra snake skin at one time, the snake skin can be used as a drink dish after frying, at this time the cobra's muscles will still squirm, the snake killer will smoothly remove the snake bile, and then pull out the cobra's spinal cord. After mixing the spinal cord into the snake's blood and removing the other internal organs, only the pure white cobra meat is left, and the snake meat can be grilled like a normal barbecue after the snake meat is finally made into a skewer. A string of cobra meat can sell for $7, and locals have formed an industrial chain from catching snakes, raising snakes, and selling to making snake meat, and many locals rely on cobras to feed their families.
Indonesians believe that the meat of cobras can not only be used as food, but also has a strong health effect. Cobras are made into capsules and have a certain effect on many chronic diseases. The cobra's bile is said to be helpful for diabetes, and locals also believe that the flesh of the cobra has an aphrodisiac effect and also has an adjunctive therapeutic effect on certain skin diseases. Locals mainly sell cobras to people who come to Indonesia for sightseeing, mainly Chinese and Japanese, and many of them taste snake meat with a fresh mentality.
In the Philippines locals also like to eat cobras, they like to stew cobra meat to eat, Filipinos call this practice "ADOBO" method, the snake meat and ginger and garlic together into the pressure cooker simmer for 3-4 hours, cobra snake meat after high pressure stew will become minced meat, compared to Indonesia like to eat cobra meat, Filipinos prefer to drink high-pressure stewed snake soup, they think that the cobra nutrition is all retained in the snake soup.
The situation of local cobras in India is much better, and the Indian government, in order to protect the number of cobras, strictly prohibits Indians from indiscriminately killing cobras. Once the Indian cobra was also widely distributed in various parts of India, and later because a large number of cobra skins were smuggled into Europe as a luxury raw material, resulting in a significant decline in the number of Indian cobras, the Indian government introduced a protection policy. India allows the capture of cobras to extract snake venom as a raw material for making anti-venom serum, and locals can send the captured cobra to the local animal rescue station, and the rescue station will have professionals to extract the snake venom of the cobra, which will finally be diluted and injected into horses and cattle to extract the antivenom serum. Each cobra sent in is released into the wild again after extracting 4 venoms. Indian snake catchers can also get some subsidies by catching cobras.