A Conversation for Ask h2g2

Luxury

Post 21

2legs - Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side...

MMMM... exactly... lots of butter and garlic smiley - drool Hmmm... actually, thinking about it... even having eaten them, I'm not entirely sure what snails taste like/of.... other than.... garlic and butter smiley - laughsmiley - drool


Luxury

Post 22

swl

My recipe for snails

12 snails, freshly caught
1/2 pt chicken stock
2 cloves garlic
sprig parsley
Juice of 1 lemon
piece of muslin approx 6" square
salt and pepper to taste.

Bring the stock to a slow simmer and add the snails, garlic, lemon juice and muslin cloth. Simmer for 15 minutes then ladle the mix into a serving bowl. Fish out the snails and throw them away, garnish the muslin with the parsley, season with salt & pepper and eat that.


Luxury

Post 23

Maria

Butter and garlic and herbs are said to be the best accompaniments to snails.

It depends on the snail. The terrestrial(?), those that live on earth and eat plants taste of nothing so you need a good sauce. Actually it´s the sauce what many people enjoy most. I like one with toasted and grinded almonds, garlic, pimentón, herbs (fennel, laurel, cumin...), a bit of serrano ham or a stock cube, water, white wine and hot pepper.

The marine ones need nothing, they are very tasty, can´t imagine anything added. Heresy!!!


Luxury

Post 24

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

smiley - smiley


Luxury

Post 25

Pink Paisley

'12 snails, freshly caught'.

An exhausting morning's work!

PP.


Luxury

Post 26

swl

Gives you an appetite


Luxury

Post 27

Florida Sailor All is well with the world

Down here most people hunt with dogs, due to the thick underbrush of palmettos. The secret of teaching them to heard snails is training them not to run.

smiley - runsmiley - sillysmiley - nur

F smiley - dolphin S


Luxury

Post 28

SiliconDioxide

I hope there aren't any snails listening to this.


Luxury

Post 29

You can call me TC

I am reminded of one morning, many decades ago, on a campsite in France. Well - I say campsite. It was a field with a primitive sink in the middle with a cold tap. Cost us all of 8 francs the night. Anyway, upon my first visit to the tap to get water for the kettle early one morning, I encountered two ancient, rotund French ladies with buckets overflowing with snails which they had obviously been collecting since dawn.

All of which must be the absolute opposite of luxury.

I wonder if they ate the snails themselves or sold them to restaurants.


Luxury

Post 30

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

"I encountered two ancient, rotund French ladies" [TC]

Are you sure they were French? smiley - winkeye Mireille Guiliano wrote a book called "French Women Don't Get Fat," and I would hate to think that Ms. Giuliano would lie to us smiley - biggrin.

Also, do dogs really herd snails? And do snails escape capture? They can't move very fast, except for the title character in "Turbo."

I would just as soon leave snails alone, unless they are ruining my lettuce or tomatoes. smiley - yikes Something must eat them [besides humans I mean], since they don't seem to have overrun the Earth.


Luxury

Post 31

Deb

I had a whelk recently. It was very chewy - after a few minutes someone very kindly handed me their used coffee cup! I imagine snails to be a similar texture and will therefore avoid them like the plague.

Luxury to me is time to do all the nothing I want. I've been enjoying that this week.

Deb smiley - cheerup


Luxury

Post 32

Florida Sailor All is well with the world

No paulh, I just had an amusing vision of a pack of dogs trying the nudge the snails onto the path with their nosessmiley - smiley Although dogs here are not just used to retrieve birds, but for flushing deer and running down wild hogs. In the opening of 'The Yearling' there is an interesting event of hunting a bear with a pair of dogs. I am not supporting the practice, only reporting about it.

On the subject of eating snails, I have had some very tasty ones, but as the others have said, they seem to be just a convenient way to get to the butter and garlicsmiley - erm

I think a great deal of the taste and enjoyment depends on the preparation of mollusks. I would not think of visiting the Caribbean without a few dishes of conch. On the other hand I have never had them in the US that I was not reminded of used pencil eraserssmiley - yuk Just my smiley - 2cents

smiley - cheers

F smiley - dolphin S


Luxury

Post 33

loonycat - run out of fizz

Molluscs aren't my idea of luxury
smiley - erm
The farmhouse \ guesthouse where I stayed for my sister's wedding was fairly luxurious by my simple standards smiley - bubbly


Luxury

Post 34

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

Over the years I've occasionally found great restaurants where I could get fried squid. In the 1970s there was a Greek restaurant that had the dish. More recently, there was a buffet-style Chinese restaurant that was equally adept. Sadly, both places have closed.

I have a friend who used to have a colony of snails in an old aquarium [minus the water, of course]. Now that I think of it, when I had water and fish in my own aquaria, I sometimes had snails in with them, to eat the algae that grew on the sides.


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