Saturday 28 July 2018

Escargot? Not Quite


Snails have been on the menu and the blog before because they are a summer delicacy and are cooked in this household for the fiesta of Agia ( female Saint) Paraskevi on 26th July.

They are gathered in the winter or at the end of long hot summer when it finally rains and they all come out to dance the happy snail dance.   We gather them up and leave them  to feed on herbs, flour and macaroni to flush out the wastes of their little internal digestive systems and purge their discharge tracts.  The snails, the little garden variety, then close themselves off and settle down for a long winter's nap.   



Snails stored in an old pillowcase....in the fridge, not under the bed

We buy them by the kilo from our local grocer



Snails on a bed of spaghetti and rosemary

The membrane used to close themselves off from the world is scraped off each snail with a sharp knife.  Our traditional person does this boring job.  I used to but really my life is now too short to include tedious cleaning of snails.  


They are then washed thoroughly, looked at individually to make sure each one is open and fresh, and placed in a container covered very firmly with netting.  Don't want any of these little ambrosiacs  escaping.  They slowly awake, have a few nibbles and then of course try to escape and often do.  But they don't go far.  Their  fate awaits


After a few days they are boiled, humanely.  Is that possible.  Then an even more boring job begins of cutting the top off each snail so air can penetrate and and they can be sucked easily from the shell with a greasy, noisy slurp




The last of a plate of snails.  

Then the most important part of the operation begins, the making of the sauce.  The success of the snails depends on the taste of the sauce.  A naked snail is neither desirable nor appreciated.

First of all you need lots of sliced onion and garlic.
Bay leaves and freshly grated tomato
A wine glass of your best Greek olive oil
Salt and loads of freshly grated pepper
Rosemary and thyme

All the rich, fragrant tastes of the med


These fresh ingredients are slowly stewed till the sauce is thick and soft and then the snails are poured into the sauce and mixed well.  Preferably they are left a few hours to take in all that delicious sauce.  

Then you suck the insides out and sop up the sauce with lots of bread.  Any that can't be sucked out are poked out with a toothpick.  Careful with the sucking.  A little extra  suction will find a snail disappearing down your throat in one very unexpected swoop.

Eat well away from small grandchildren who object noisily to the lusty sucking sound that you are making.

I see in my snail investigation that these are yet another area that the all governing EU (European Union) has decided to stick its pervasive finger into.  In some EU countries it is forbidden to collect snails because they are becoming a disappearing species.  If you decide to live dangerously and collect a few anyway they must be over 3cms.  I presume we are talking about French and Cretan snails here which are much larger .  Garden snails are not an endangered species in my garden and they are a helluva lot smaller than those 3cm monsters.





17 comments:

  1. You know I love your food posts, I really do. But as much as I appreciate the wonderful flavour that the sauce must be, I just don't think I could eat snails. (Too much time spent in the garden?). Very interesting, however, to find out how they are fed and kept and processed. -Jenn

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    1. Somehow i thought you'd wouldn't try this! Actually you don't really taste the snail but seeing it hanging on a toothpick s really off-putting.
      I don't eat them anymore. Too much trouble getting the insides out.
      Try the sauce with mushrooms.......

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  2. Make that two orders for the sauce - I'll mop mine up with a slice of bread. I wouldn't want to deny anyone else the pleasure of the snails.

    I am not complaining, but we haven't got any around this year, perhaps the dry weather is to thank, or maybe the hedgehogs are munching them. It seems that pillowcases are very useful for storing food, on your beautiful island, my brain isn't telling me what, but I seem to recall you telling us about an old lady storing some foodstuff or other, under her bed in a pillowcase - or did I dream up that post?

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    1. Yes, that was my dear m in law. Her main storage area was under the bed though I don't think she kept any snails there.
      Snails tend to be a little whiffy. Not all make it alive to the pot.
      Our snails were kept in the pillowcase for a week in the fridge before cooking because we didn't have to prepare them immediately.

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  3. The only kind we have had, are those in bigger shells. Which have been removed, and sauteed in butter and etc., and replaced into the shells. Then to be gotten out, with a special little fork. :-)

    And the remaining 'sauce' is sopped up, with bread, also.

    Delicious!

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    1. Yum for snails in butter and re-stuffed. I shall sample them one day

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  4. "...the all governing EU (European Union) has decided to stick its pervasive finger into..."

    Ahhh yes! The pervasive EU and its *delightful* governing body! Cheers for the ordinary people, of the UK, who voted out of it.

    I say 'ordinary', in the most loving way. I am an ordinary person too. Actually, we are called "Deplorables" over here... Called thus, by the *Enlightened* and *All Knowing* Liberal people. >,-)))

    Ahhhh yes! All we, who do not agree, that World Governing Bodies, are not the *salvation* of the world.

    Since you see the folly, in the Governing Body of the EU, I guess you too, are one of we deplorable, uneducated, simple minded, ordinary people.

    Hooray!!!!!! Long may we persevere! Long may we fight back, against the *More Enlightened Mob*!!!!

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    1. There rules and regulations are incomprehensible. How can one rule be forced on so many different, cultures, climates, people?
      Boo to the EU especially when it is forcing austerity on poor Greeks making money out of them

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  5. Sounds like a lot of work to me
    They must be very delicious. I think I’ve had them when very young and not interested I eating snails.
    I have a vague memory of trying one. But I have had escargot and I enjoy them immensely

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    1. I would like to try escargot. I used to eat these snails. Just not worth the effort now. There is always something else on the table to eat!!!

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  6. Here, I think they purge them with nettles. I love snails and particularly the garlic/butter/breadcrumbs variety. I leave all the hard work to others!

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    1. I have never tried snails with garlic. Now and again they appear for a brief time in lidls. I shall buy some when I find them

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  7. nope nope nope, just can't get the image of garden snails out of my head lol

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    1. Stick to escargot in garlic butter. Forget those garden pests!

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  8. We collected thirty slugs and one snail in the polytunnel yesterday morning. I think they like the constant watering and also the cucumbers and tomatoes. I have never ate snails, are they good?

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    1. Keep them penned up and feed them till they're fat and happy, a snail gingerbread house. Then let them go....in your neighbours garden. Not worth the effort.

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  9. I think I'll have the sauce but, before the snails have gone in.
    Greetings Maria x

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