Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Get Stuffed - Two sultry river tales

In defense of snails and others

This may seem merely like a showcase for two bizarre food tales bookending some gastronomic/natural history. And maybe it is. But, dear reader, it’s reach also extends a little beyond that.

The first tale is set in a tiny locals’ café on the banks of France’s Bayonne River. It was August. Although Biarritz just to the south was busy with tourists French and otherwise cooling their well-heeled heels at the beach, sultry unfashionable Bayonne seemed to have been happily abandoned to us and the local Basques.

After a long hot day we were moving about as sluggishly as the river. Debating what to order, mon ami peered across at a huge platter of ice being served at the table beside us. It was covered with what looked like small snails in conical shells and other dark-shelled molluscs. Ah, iced mussels and escargots. So refreshing.

La m ê me chose – the same – my good buddy piped up, and soon a similar platter descended before him in a swirl of deliciously cool air. Suddenly what had not been clearly evident became so. The shelled bivalves we never did make a positive ID of. And there were a few other unknowns, which may have been limpets.

But the critters with the spiral shells we could ID. They were periwinkles and whelks, kinds of sea snails, and talk about fresh. These babies were so fresh they were still moving, the tiny gastropods pulling themselves slowly, ever so achingly slowly across the glacial field of crushed ice they had suddenly found themselves on. I bade my partner bon appétite and waited serenely for my salad.

I’ve never seen a snail since without thinking of that platter of icy death. Come to think of it, I’ve never ordered escargots either. But prior to that, I’d certainly enjoyed my share. In the early ’70s when escargots started popping up on menus in western Canada as a groovy – and I use the term historically – food experience, we used to joke that we only ordered them for the yummy garlic butter, as we sopped up same with big whitish chunks of "French" bread.

Boy, were we behind the times. Snails have been eaten for centuries. In fact, they may have been one of the first animals to become a staple of the human diet. According to Reay Tannahill’s Food in History , despite the lack of garlic butter, snails, along with other small animals like turtles, comprised an important part of the prehistoric food supply gathered by women. The men, by the way, were out hunting larger, more valued chunks of protein, while elders made tools and brewed medicinal potions.

We know snails were also highly valued by Romans, who fattened them up with milk until they were too gross to slide back into their protective shells. Ergo the popularity of snails in France, especially the south, which was once part of the great Roman Empire. But the snail was not only prized in the West. Early travellers’ accounts from China note how much the upper class enjoyed roasted snails as a delicacy, along with other conventional treats such as sharks’ fins and plovers’ eggs.

But snails aren’t only prized for their prestigious aspects. They’re also a good low-fat source of protein – 100 grams of snails contain 16 gm of protein, 1.5 gm of fats and 2 gm of carbohydrates and only 90 calories (before the garlic butter). This fact is not intended to add to the Atkins craze.

While the firmness and delicacy of snail flesh varies from one species to another, the white burgundy or vineyard snail and the petite gris or garden snail are the varieties of choice in the biggest snail-eating nations – France, Algeria and Turkey.

In these countries, snails are farmed much like any other animal raised for human consumption, often fattened on special diets to get the best results, much like corn-fed beef. In Provence, snails dine on a thyme-based regime to add that certain j’en sais quois bit of flavour. In many cases, the poor little things are also often starved some 10 days before, what? harvest? slaughter? to add to the pleasing flavour.

I know, it seems nothing like the cruelty that befalls industrially produced veal, pigs, cows and chickens. Or is it?

First off, we’re not culturally equipped to merge the concepts of "cruelty" and "snails" in the same thought. Witness how we crunch them unthinkingly underfoot in gardens and forests, or deliver even worse fates in efforts to keep our vegetable and flower beds pest-free.

But let me point out a few facts before I provide a recipe for escargots. And no, you can’t use the little darlings from your garden to kill two snails with one stone, so to speak. To begin with, we have 88 species of snails in B.C., including escaped European brown snails, likely imported illegally for snail farms, and now wreaking havoc with indigenous species (much like the Atlantic salmon do when they escape the dreaded fish farms).

So trying to sort though edible vs. non-edible snails is like finding edible mushrooms in the wild – you need expert help. And be warned: even if you successfully ID the edible varieties, you still might be faced with parasites harmful to humans, not to mention pesticide or other toxic residue from deterrents your neighbour may have set out. So find yourself a reliable source, like a tin at the grocery store.

But before you do, consider my second bizarre food tale. This, too, occurred in a sultry local riverside café, in this case one on the banks of the Mekong, winding its murky way between Thailand and Laos. Here my travelling partner and I found ourselves at the end of a gruelling day. Our Thai was poor but our appetites were monstrous, so again, we simply pointed to a good-looking dish that had just been served to neighbouring diners.

Immediately another diner ran over from clear across the room when it looked like the two farangs , us , were about to order same. His English was maybe even worse than our Thai, and all he could get out was the word "chicken", which, in his excitement, came out as squawky as the sound of the bird itself. Feeling reassured, we ordered with smiles that soon felt a little strained. Our chicken turned out to be a platter of whole baby birds, god knows what species, battered and deep-fried, legs, talons, beaks and all.

We managed to get through a few of the crispy brown nuggets, partly due to hunger and partly to travellers’ pride. The Thai diners were watching intently. Oh yes, we LOVE whole baby birds and order them every chance we get. My stalwart English companion kept repeating a little too often that they were good because of the crunchiness. I kept thinking about two things: intestines and unknown wild bird parents circling empty nests.

Not to put you off, but this brings us back to the humble snail. Check out any natural history guide (UBC Press is publishing Robert Forsyth’s Land Snails of B.C. this summer) and you’ll see that snails are pretty amazing creatures. I won’t go into all the impressive details, like how they help make soil, and can lift 10 times their own weight, and can survive in hot springs up to 44 C, or weigh up to a kilo and grow bigger than your boyfriend’s foot.

The simple fact that got me is that snails have a heart. And lungs, and a long tongue, and some even have pointy teeth. The ones with long tentacles out front, which we might be tempted to wrongly call antennae, have eyes on the end. How cool is that?

Not to say that I’m a vegetarian, nor that you should be. But the next time you crunch into a snail, wherever it may be, maybe think of those two platters of whole-bodied creatures. Or not, depending on your appetite.

-----------ADD 1 pt RULE ---------------

Speaking of bizarre dining experiences, I’d love to hear about yours. If you have a highly unusual but prized tale about eating something beyond the pale, please e-mail me at gbartosh@telus.net and it could be fodder for an upcoming column.

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who now gingerly moves the snails in her garden to safe places.

 

Classic escargots a la Bourguignonne

(Snails with garlic butter)

For 36 snails

Cream 1 1/4 cups (unsalted) butter and blend in 2 tsp finely chopped shallot, 2 crushed garlic cloves (or more as you like), 1 tsp each of finely chopped parsley and chives, salt and pepper to taste. Put a little butter into each of 36 shells (also obtainable at the grocery store) and place a snail in each shell. Cover with remaining butter. Pour 2 tbsp white wine into a flat baking dish or individual snail plates. Arrange the shells in the dish and sprinkle with fine bread crumbs. Bake in a very hot oven (450 F) or place under the broiler until the crumbs are golden brown. Serve with French bread.

Eating snails – or anything – safely

If you would like to check on food safety and/or nutritional value contact:

• BC Ministry of Health’s Dial-a-Dietician, 604-732-9191

• University of Guelph’s Food Safety Network: 1-866-503-7638, or fsnrsn@uoguelph.ca or www.foodsafetynetwork.ca