So today Rakel (Danish name - equivalent in the States to 'Rachel') left to take a walk on the island, and when she came back she was carrying a container filled with leaves - and also big, fat, Danish snails she collected on the hike. This was completely unexpected and fit in perfectly to my blogging agenda on local food!
I have to admit, I was a bit sensitive to the whole snail experience. I've eaten them at many restaurants (in Paris and elsewhere), but I've never seen them live, getting prepped as food, and Danish snails are quite large. If you leave them alone for a while, they will escape, despite how slow they move (see picture to the right). They actually did when we set them down for a few minutes by the front door. One or two got into somebody's shoe but were quickly retrieved and put back in the bowl...
I remember seeing some random video (online of course) of snails mating to some ethereal-sounding Debussy, and it was so beautiful the video convinced me that snails are affectionate creatures who experience love in a similar fashion we do. Yes - I'm an easy target. I sure wasn't about to focus on that, though, because we were getting ready to eat them. But I'm supposed to be blogging about Danish food and not my feelings, right? I DID find this article, which both tells you how to collect/prep snails from your own backyard, and also gives ecological reasons for doing it in this manner. I strongly recommend reading this before collecting your own backyard snails as it has a lot of important info on the subject. And yes, it did make me feel better about eating them.. :)
To continue - Rakel came back with about 8 snails. It turns out you have to let them hang out for several days (with food) so they can poop out all the gnarly 'toxins' they have ascertained on the ground.
We did that. For food during that time, we provided them with veggies from the garden - carrots, marigold flower petals and snap peas. They ate all of it, and boy was the container dirty by the end. Please note: you must put them in a container that will breathe, but you also have to keep them from escaping - we sure learned our lesson (somebody's shoe got slimed on their initial escape). Snails can lift about five times their weight, so we chose to securely tape two bowls together with breathing holes for ventilation, and it worked just fine. The article (with link above) gives other great suggestions for containing your garden snails..
Once the two days were up, Rakel proceeded to open the (very dirty) container and start cleaning them with water. We noticed with our online research that some people clean them by soaking in vinegar and water (or salt and water) to de-slime, but we skipped that and went straight to boiling as I was squeamish about their 'suffering'. Rakel was a Pro, though - she put each individual snail in there and boiled them for a good 15 minutes, then took them out to cool.
After this, she removed them completely from the shell - using only a small fork. You can do this with a Danish Snail, as they are quite large. If you get your snails from some backyard in southern Spain, I think you'll need a toothpick as they're much smaller ;).
Rakel looked it up and said that we could only cut off and eat the head - that the longer, curlier part (intestine included, obviously) was not for eating. In the picture to the right, the white part includes the 'head'. See how big these guys are!! Much bigger than the French escargot variety. She cut those and made sure there was no slime left. You must de-slime your snails either by scraping the slime off while boiling and/or soaking them in water and salt before boiling (soaking like this helps get all the slime released that may be in there). ARE WE READY TO EAT SOME SNAILS NOW? :)
Now for the last bit! After de-sliming (mmmmm), Rakel separated the end from the intestine, and proceeded to boil the snail 'ends' in a pan with stock, parsley, basil and onion - for a good two hours. Meanwhile, she carefully cleaned out the snail shells (so she could stuff the finished product back into them when done).
They looked beautiful when she brought them out, and they tasted fantastic. There was some griping about 'a lot of effort for a small amount of food', but if you are doing it up at your house for a dinner party and want to impress your guests, this is a pretty cool way to do it. I'm sure glad we did it for the experience. And although I know Rakel is as much of a softy as I am, she was brave enough to handle all the hard parts of cooking them with the usual grace I've noticed she is abundant with.
I have to admit, I was a bit sensitive to the whole snail experience. I've eaten them at many restaurants (in Paris and elsewhere), but I've never seen them live, getting prepped as food, and Danish snails are quite large. If you leave them alone for a while, they will escape, despite how slow they move (see picture to the right). They actually did when we set them down for a few minutes by the front door. One or two got into somebody's shoe but were quickly retrieved and put back in the bowl...
I remember seeing some random video (online of course) of snails mating to some ethereal-sounding Debussy, and it was so beautiful the video convinced me that snails are affectionate creatures who experience love in a similar fashion we do. Yes - I'm an easy target. I sure wasn't about to focus on that, though, because we were getting ready to eat them. But I'm supposed to be blogging about Danish food and not my feelings, right? I DID find this article, which both tells you how to collect/prep snails from your own backyard, and also gives ecological reasons for doing it in this manner. I strongly recommend reading this before collecting your own backyard snails as it has a lot of important info on the subject. And yes, it did make me feel better about eating them.. :)
To continue - Rakel came back with about 8 snails. It turns out you have to let them hang out for several days (with food) so they can poop out all the gnarly 'toxins' they have ascertained on the ground.
We did that. For food during that time, we provided them with veggies from the garden - carrots, marigold flower petals and snap peas. They ate all of it, and boy was the container dirty by the end. Please note: you must put them in a container that will breathe, but you also have to keep them from escaping - we sure learned our lesson (somebody's shoe got slimed on their initial escape). Snails can lift about five times their weight, so we chose to securely tape two bowls together with breathing holes for ventilation, and it worked just fine. The article (with link above) gives other great suggestions for containing your garden snails..
Once the two days were up, Rakel proceeded to open the (very dirty) container and start cleaning them with water. We noticed with our online research that some people clean them by soaking in vinegar and water (or salt and water) to de-slime, but we skipped that and went straight to boiling as I was squeamish about their 'suffering'. Rakel was a Pro, though - she put each individual snail in there and boiled them for a good 15 minutes, then took them out to cool.
Rakel looked it up and said that we could only cut off and eat the head - that the longer, curlier part (intestine included, obviously) was not for eating. In the picture to the right, the white part includes the 'head'. See how big these guys are!! Much bigger than the French escargot variety. She cut those and made sure there was no slime left. You must de-slime your snails either by scraping the slime off while boiling and/or soaking them in water and salt before boiling (soaking like this helps get all the slime released that may be in there). ARE WE READY TO EAT SOME SNAILS NOW? :)
Now for the last bit! After de-sliming (mmmmm), Rakel separated the end from the intestine, and proceeded to boil the snail 'ends' in a pan with stock, parsley, basil and onion - for a good two hours. Meanwhile, she carefully cleaned out the snail shells (so she could stuff the finished product back into them when done).
They looked beautiful when she brought them out, and they tasted fantastic. There was some griping about 'a lot of effort for a small amount of food', but if you are doing it up at your house for a dinner party and want to impress your guests, this is a pretty cool way to do it. I'm sure glad we did it for the experience. And although I know Rakel is as much of a softy as I am, she was brave enough to handle all the hard parts of cooking them with the usual grace I've noticed she is abundant with.
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| Rakel |
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| Katy devouring snails |
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