Well, I thought I'd start off my first hunt of the spring snail season with a big bowl of snail soup. (Which I'll be having tomorrow.) The snails are good this year, and ate my watermelon plants, so I'll get my revenge! (Dammit! They were in pots! That means special! Stupid mollusks!)

I wish Mafalda was here.

I thought people might want a good snail recipe since not only are they free, but easy to get, common and tasty. So here is a brief guide to snail soup, though they can also be fried, made into fritters or eaten whole:




Snail Soup

In order to make snail soup, you will first need some snails. These can be easily obtained by simply looking around your backyard.

The best time to get snails are the months of October-November and March-April, especially in spring when there's lots of fresh foliage about for them to snack on and they get plump, but before egg laying season. (Winters are too cold for them, summers too dry.) Try and get them on a cool night after it's been raining. (Not while it's raining, they dislike that.) Snails are best found near old cement structures, which they eat for calcium. Alternatively you can put out some bran or cabbage leaves as a lure. Lichen also works, but not moss. (Or, save the troubble and throw out a lot of cardboard boxes, these will attract snails like anything.) Snails are best kept in old icecream containers (Plastic) or large jars. Don't worry about air, it takes them almost a day to asphyxiate. You should be able to collect around four pounds of snails an hour on a good night. (Or during the day if you know where they sleep.) Be careful, this is tiring work on your back. (That's why kiwi are short.) Remember to take obvious precautions; don't take poisoned snails or those that are in paddocks where cattle or chickens are grazing. To be safe you can 'farm' your snails a week or two.

Next step, cleaning your snails. All your snails should be 'fed clean' that is, given bran or cabbage for a day or so to clean out their gut, you want to know you're eating top quality snail, not say, a piece of old newspaper or discarded apple peel. Depending on your tastes, you can feed them with many things, lemon, apple peel, onions, and though they won't eat many herbs, the smell and flavor will rub off on them, this can be an important flavoring step. When your snails are well fed, remove them from their container and give them a good wash in fresh water to remove any soil or scraps.

Now comes the mean part, you must kill your snails. Some people prefer to shell them first, I don't. Simply put them into a pot of boiling water, this is a quick, clean death. (Alternatively you can put them in a ziplock bag with no air in the freezer, though this can harm the taste.) After a minute's boiling (Or more, this is soup so it doesn't matter, if you were going to fry them, you'd want a shorter dunking time.) you can pull the shells off, this is easier than it sounds, like cracking an egg. Some people swear by pickling in vinegar, this also removes shells, but pickled snails have never been my thing, though they're great to add to any savory dish. Your snails will keep several days in the fridge if well boiled, and a year when frozen. (And yes, at this point all the slime will be gone.)

Now we can cook the soup proper. Thankfully there are no strict measurements to be made here (I can spend 2 minutes measuring a cup of water to perfection, it's the scientist in me.) For the snails, think of chicken soup, you want as much snails in the soup as you'd have chicken, and a similar volume will serve a family. Other ingredients are similarly 'loose'; add as much as you want (When it comes to the vegetables for example I use all of what I've got, unless it's moldy.)

You'll want a big soup pot into which you toss chopped carrots and brassica (Broccoli and cauliflower, though you can use cabbage.) and peas. You may want to add lentils, though I personally hate them, and an old chicken or beef bone for flavoring is a great idea, as well as any seasonings you'd like (I prefer rosemary.) My 'stock' recipe includes 1 tablespoon butter, 1/2 cup chopped onions, 1 teaspoon salt, a small bayleaf, 1/2 teaspoon pepper( all these mostly to garnish) and enough water to just cover the lot. Snails are almost fat free, and you may want to add more butter for a more rounded feel to the taste, or milk. (Oh and noodles are nice if you want to bulk it up.) Just shove everything into the pot and leave it to boil for half an hour. You can keep it on 'warm' for as long as you like.

If you *really* can't stand whole snails, dice them, or put them through a brief zap in the blender. (AFTER they've been killed!)

So what do snails taste like? If poorly cooked,t hey taste and feel like rubber. Snails have a very distinctive taste that is only comparable to shellfish. (Hey,they almost are!) Basically they are rather comparable to oysters, and are indeed known in some (Rather frowned upon.) circles as land oysters. Flavor in this case will largely be what you make it, and is very sensitive to how the snails are cooked, seasonings used, and even what they've eaten. Oh, if you have shellfish allergies, don't eat snails. (Duh!)