Slime and turf

JUST LAST WEEK...ahem... just last week I spent hours planning how to grow escargot in my 60 gallon fish tank. In the end, I gave up, but I learned some interesting facts. Do you know that snails will not cross a strip of copper? Also, the giant African snail is edible and is as big as your hand? It's like the geoduck of snails!

I decided it was too much work (especially post-collection) to grow land snails, so I'll stick with periwinkles from the local beaches. This year I might branch out to the much larger carnivorous moon snail.

As to the usage of escargot beyond garlic and butter, it has to be my favorite pizza topping ever.
 
The common garden snail of California is also helix aspersa, introduced by an enterprising French immigrant in Gold Rush times in an ill-fated scheme to get rich selling such culinary prizes. Now a garden pest, they still make good eatin'. My mother has for decades now overcome her innate aversion to slimy things and collected them from her backyard, fed 'em on cornmeal for a week then cooked them. Yummers. Never tried them on pizza, though.

Mark Lipton
 
Also, the giant African snail is edible and is as big as your hand?
Click to expand...
Our safari guide picked one of those up while we were on one particularly animal-free game drive. It was as huge as promised.

I admit my thoughts soon wandered to mass quantities of garlic and butter...
 
A friend of mine's husband is in the USSD. She joined him in Africa, and took this picture out her window as they were offered fresh goods for dinner:

Ghana_Snails_003.jpg
 
originally posted by MarkS:
I'd rather eat banana slugs.
Click to expand...

there used to be a banana slug-fest in seattle (maybe still is)....prizes went to the best recipes. the one year i read about, the winner pulled off a single slug suspended in a block of jello.

what are referred to as moon snails in washington are also plentiful (and huge), so i await your results, jp......(we had the korean version of "shio-kara" tonight, which is raw squid strips bathed in kimchee, so anything is possible)
 
originally posted by Frank Deis:
Aren't African swallows also rather large?

Maybe that's how those African snails got to America...
Click to expand...
Darwin had some experiments on the general subject, didn't he?
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
originally posted by MarkS:
I'd rather eat banana slugs.
Click to expand...

there used to be a banana slug-fest in seattle (maybe still is)....prizes went to the best recipes. the one year i read about, the winner pulled off a single slug suspended in a block of jello.

what are referred to as moon snails in washington are also plentiful (and huge), so i await your results, jp......(we had the korean version of "shio-kara" tonight, which is raw squid strips bathed in kimchee, so anything is possible)
Click to expand...
Please a little respect, remember the banana slug is the animal mascot of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
 
I don't much like bananas and I'm not a fan of eating banana slugs either (although I used to enjoy seeing them when going hiking in the hills north of San Simeon).

This afternoon I endeavored to lay waste to a large community of helix aspersa that had taken up residence and became fruitful and multiplied in my garden. I'm happy to coexist with them, but they were abusing the privilege, eating lots of stuff that stretched my patience. I reread a couple of Patricia Wentworth short stories about snails and, secure in the idea that snails have it in for humans anyway, I entered the garden and solayed a probably-adequate quantity of Sluggo around the garden. We'll see how many snails remain ensconced there in a couple of days.

-Eden
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top