Does anyone eat the snails from their garden

[Cycling Naturalist]

An article in The Times today said that garden snails are not just edible, but reckoned to taste better than their cousins that are farmed for the table. I suppose even snail farming ends up like battery farming.

The article suggested keeping them for a week or so on lettuce to detox them of any nasties and then dropping them into boiling water to kill and cook them. Slugs can be preserved with salt and kept for the winter.

Does anyone do this?

 

[yenrod]

Ho he ho he ho !

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Run out of Readers Wives stories Patrick?

 

[User169]

An article in The Times today said that garden snails are not just edible, but reckoned to taste better than their cousins that are farmed for the table. I suppose even snail farming ends up like battery farming.

The article suggested keeping them for a week or so on lettuce to detox them of any nasties and then dropping them into boiling water to kill and cook them. Slugs can be preserved with salt and kept for the winter.

Does anyone do this?

I thought you were supposed to starve the poor blighters, not feed them lettuce.

Fergus Henderson describes how to do it here.

 

[Ranger]

An article in The Times today said that garden snails are not just edible, but reckoned to taste better than their cousins that are farmed for the table. I suppose even snail farming ends up like battery farming.

The article suggested keeping them for a week or so on lettuce to detox them of any nasties and then dropping them into boiling water to kill and cook them. Slugs can be preserved with salt and kept for the winter.

Does anyone do this?

I am sure that I read that the common garden snail was introduced to Britain by the Romans who ate them.

My parents neighbour in France suggests starving them for a week and then feeding them on bread, parsley and garlic to improve the flavour

 

[rich p]

My parents neighbour in France suggests starving them for a week and then feeding them on bread, parsley and garlic to improve the flavour

Then throw them away and eat something that tastes good

 

[ChrisKH]

Yes, I read that too Patrick. I love snails, but would be reluctant to cook them up from my garden without a long period of de-tox.

Got to cook them a couple of times, as well, to get rid of the slime.

 

[Speck]

Neighbours Springer Spaniel loves them, shells and all.

 

[Fnaar]

The slimy gets have decimated my vegetable patch, so death to all the slime-mongers, I say. I'll eat the feckers raw.

 

[Maz]

I imagine that if they can chomp through leaves, they can give you a nasty nip, too. Is that right?

 

[thomas]

Then throw them away and eat something that tastes good

Had them in france and really liked them!!

You should borrow a couple of chickens Fnaar. Watching them work death and decimation on a load of slugs always brings a warm glow to my heart

My, now dead, pet chickens used to love pecking snails to death!

 

[Maz]

Chickens? Oh yes.

Hehe. No, the snails n slugs!

 

[Chuffy]

I imagine that if they can chomp through leaves, they can give you a nasty nip, too. Is that right?

More of a gentle rasp than a nip.

Oddly enough I currently have a large bucket (with lid) full of snails. They are enjoying dandelions and carrot (when the poo goes orange they're purged of whatever other stuff they've been eating round my garden) and some time this weekend I will be cooking up a batch of the bastards.
My garden is currently denuded of large snaily objects. I may put out the empty shells on cocktail sticks to discourage the rest...

Cooking instructions seem to vary wildly, from 'plunge into boiling water for 10 minutes, winkle from shell, fry in butter and garlic etc' to 'boil for hours, then winkle out and fry'. Most seem to say that they don't taste of much except for the stuff you fry them with

 

[Chuffy]

Apparently a couple of Nigella's chums cooked a special seafood dish in her honour. Afterwards she said that she thoroughly enjoyed having their winkles in cider.*









* - 'borrowed' from ISIHAC.

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

I've been told that slugs were eaten by people in Scotland before but I just put it down to urban legend.

The article said it was the Scots that used to keep them in salt as a winter food. A handful of slugs, a turnip and a glass of vintage Bucky - what could be nicer on a cold winter evening.