Snails

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ASC1951

Guru
Location
Yorkshire
Now that I have got round to planting out this season's crops, I find that I'm sharing them with this year's snails.

Any reason why I can't get my own back by eating the snails? It might take me a few days to round up enough for a meal - unless I set some traps - but they do slip down just fine when I have them on holiday.
 
Ramsey did it on one of his programs. Catch them and stick them in a jar with carrots. After a couple of days when they start to poo orange, so you know they have been cleaned through they should be good to go. This may or may not be true - must be better sources than me for this.

Or just get yourself a hedgehog.
 

longers

Legendary Member
I'm sure Baggy and Chuffy did something similar to Ramsay. I couldn't, not keen on the idea.
 
If you are talking about Helix aspersa the common garden snail, petit gris to the French, yes you can eat them. Just be careful to purge them properly, remove the "shell closer" on the foot and remove the cloaca at the end of the body, some people cut right back to the meat, others think the liver and guts are the tastiest part. All this is after boiling for a few minutes to dislodge them from their shell.

User1314, you can eat slugs, the problem is the masses of extra slime they make need special preparation to remove, mainly by soaking in salt. You also need someone who knows how to remove the intestine, which can contain dangerous parasites.
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
I remember Hugh FW cooking slugs.. and he even went to the point of taking the skins off and stuffing them to see if it improved it... I think I remember that it didn't - it certainly looked too much effort for not much taste.
 

Baggy

Cake connoisseur
Uncle Mort said:
Yes, I think they mentioned needing to purify him by feeding him on oatmeal for a few days. But the poo never turned yellow and he was a bugger to stuff back in his shell. :wacko:
:tongue: The thrushes keep trying to bash his shell in, but he's too heavy.


Descriptions of Chuffy's experiment are here and here

I had no part in this experiment! He released most of them back to the wild in the end...
 
OP
OP
A

ASC1951

Guru
Location
Yorkshire
Uncle Mort said:
Buy a man a chicken and he will spend many happy years tossing dratted molluscs to said chicken and watching them being annihilated
I have thought of keeping a couple of chickens, but you can't just go away on holiday and leave them; and if I'm going to have to collect the snails for them, I might as well eat them myself or carry on dropping them in my composter.

Slugs aren't a problem here. The pondful of frogs seems to cope with them. IIRC even Hugh Fearlessly Eatsitall found that slugs were disgusting no matter how you tried to cook them.
 

wafflycat

New Member
ASC1951 said:
I have thought of keeping a couple of chickens, but you can't just go away on holiday and leave them; and if I'm going to have to collect the snails for them, I might as well eat them myself or carry on dropping them in my composter.

Indeed. This is why I have an offspring. He appreciates the produce supplied by The Laydeez (he took half-a-dozen of their finest with him today) so will look after them and the cats if his dad & I fancy a weekend away.

On the plus side - you don't have to collect snails for the hens, they are far more efficient at snail search & destory than any mere human.
 
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