This summer I got a call from a friend that has moved to Australia, he was back in France for a week or two and wanted to catch up when we were in the same hemisphere.
On the last night we went out to a restaurant, were I stupidly addmited to having never tryed escargot.
Well that lead to laughter and a rushed order of what was possible the hardest thing I have ever had to attempt to eat!
Now I have a bit of a history with eating snails, when i was younger about 3, my older sister desided that it was a perfect idea to eat a snail in our back garden in London. Ironically the snails that you find in your garden is most likely the one that will end up on your plate. So the fatefull day my sister put a Helix pomatia into her mouth 2 things happened.
One is she pulled possible the BEST face i have ever seen! The other was she suddenly opened her mouth and a large amount of slime and bubbles started frothing out of her mouth. I think its fair to say having my Mother repeat that story when ever she desided to be a pickey eater left me with a slightly squewed look at eating snail.
But at that point they had arrived!
Now it common in France for the snails to be starved for a day or two, killed and removed from their shells, cooked, usually with garlic butter, or chicken stock, and or wine. They are then put back into their shell with garlic and the cooking sauce.
Now they look stunning! they are sealed into ceramic white snail shells with a small crouton holding in the garlic butter. However these ceramic shells are HOT, and I mean boiling. Trying to hold a small, smooth ceramic shell that is covered in butter it really hard.
So I spent 90% of time trying snails getting pretty badly burned, they may smell like warm garlic butter and taste pretty similar. Its truly the texture that gets you, there warm, slimey and a bit chewy. Now I dont know about you, but I am not really a fan, the small croutons sealing them in are amazing, crunchy, garlicy. They are presented exelently, and the temptation to steal a ceramic snail shell is phenomenal, smell exquisite.
However I am not a fan of the texture, so the next time I am offered to try them I will probably say no, I will recomend them to a friend, and then I will spend the entire time smelling and looking longingly at possible the best presented plate I will see in a long time.
If you get a chance to try them, do. It is a great experience and dish!
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