How to Cook Garden Snails

Snails, yes normal garden snails!!! you know the big brown speckled ones people kill with slug pellets. They were  introduced to the British isles with the romans, as food source. So along with paternalistic sexism, straight roads and socks we can thank them for snails. The british isles has lovely climate for snails, wet, not cold with plenty of vegetable gardeners to annoy. They don't eat as much slugs, and I have found I can tolerate a reasonable population in my garden, without the large loses that slugs can inflict. There is several other species of snail like the banded and sandhill which are smaller and stripy, that although relatives of which like the chocolate snails are eaten in Europe the species found here aren't edible. We wild food to make up for the knowledge through the industrialisation of people.  I have tried eating banded snails, and they had a seriously unpleasant texture. Slugs aren't edible either, they cook up into a mucusy goo.

My whole garden, back and front with the exception of the ferret enclosure is used in growing food. I mulch with grass clippings from neighbours and with homemade compost from the ferrets and kitchen waste. This is perfect habitat for slugs and snails to breed. Slugs breed more vigorously and destroy far more veggies than snails. To throw the balance from slugs to snails, I  limed the whole garden, I also add calcium in the form of grated cuttle fish I collected from the beach. Snails need calcium rich soils to grow healthy shells. I still have to go out on wet mornings picking and  squishing slugs. I am lucky enough to have a large slow worm population so eating snails is preferable to using slug pellets.

Collecting and purging
When I go out slug squishing, I collect the snails in large plant pot. The plant pot has holes small enough they don't escape.

The plant pot is then turned upside down, and the snails are not fed for two days. They are then transferred to another unturned plant pot with previously collected snails with a bowl of water and fresh food. We normal use lettuce or cabbage, but any edible leaves or grated root veg will do. Woodstock likes to feed them a range of different foods, and he gives them names and pets them.

The pot is rinsed out every day to keep the snails healthy and happy.  When we have collected enough to eat we feed them carrot or beetroot. When the snail poop changes colour they are ready to eat. If they have being kept clean well fed and happy for over two weeks you don't need to do this as any remains of poisonous leaves would have left their system. Cooking kills any parasites they have.

Killing them softly
When you want to eat them, transfer snails to plastic box and put in the freezer for a hour, but no longer, this puts them in to deep hibernation. Bring a saucepan to rolling boil and put the cold snails in the pot. Boil for ten minutes.

Cooking
Drain the water and rinse the gooeyness off.  Remove the snail meat from the shells. Remove the soft digestive organ, its the most tightly curled bit that is last to come out the snail when you take it out of the shell.

Cook the snail meat by boiling for 40 minutes.

Drain and serve. Or return to shells and coat in garlic butter and breadcrumbs and bake for 10 minutes at gas mark 6 200f.