rox
Veteran Member
Hey I bet that Topic Heading really attacted all the hunters. Oh well this is probably not going to be as thrilling as you think. Last night it really poured rainn herre which is good it ahs been dry and it will really help the olives to plump out, hopefully with oil. They say rains in September are good becaue the olvie has time to convert that water into oil before picking in November. Another bonus of the rain is it really brings out the escargo, or in English the snails.
My hsuband had hunted for snails earlier in June but came up empty. He sees the neighbor up the hill this morning with his bucket in hand and Cluade tells him the snails are out so my husband went on the hunt as well. Between you and me I am sure picking snails is more in the "gathering" end of the hunter-gatherer spectrum but I do like to humor him, and I do like the snails, so we call it Escargot hunting in our maison.
Thought you might enjoy the pics. We have great snails here they are called Petit Gris. The snails you get from France in USA are Burgone snails, I think from Burgundy. Ours are better- yum-yum.
So he collect the snails, then you leave them in a container where they can breath, the slotted wast paper basket works great for that. Leave them in there for a few days so they can "disgorge" themselves. Basically what that means is they have no food and what they were digesting when you picked them they need to eliminate, excrete.
After a few days you boil them in water, pick them out of their shells. Then you put the empty shells back in water with bleach. You want nice clean shells. Then with a toothpick you stuff the snail back into it's shell and stuff the shell with garlic butter. Or if you are not serving them again in the shells you can jsut leave out the snail meat and cook it in say a tomatoe sauce, also quite tasty.
On top of the wast paper basket is a pizza pan and you can see how the snails stick to the underside of the pizza pan. We are having a Journalist from Milwaukee magazine come visit us in early October so we will be freezing these snails in order to prepare them for a meal when she is here. It should be fun!!!
My hsuband had hunted for snails earlier in June but came up empty. He sees the neighbor up the hill this morning with his bucket in hand and Cluade tells him the snails are out so my husband went on the hunt as well. Between you and me I am sure picking snails is more in the "gathering" end of the hunter-gatherer spectrum but I do like to humor him, and I do like the snails, so we call it Escargot hunting in our maison.
Thought you might enjoy the pics. We have great snails here they are called Petit Gris. The snails you get from France in USA are Burgone snails, I think from Burgundy. Ours are better- yum-yum.
So he collect the snails, then you leave them in a container where they can breath, the slotted wast paper basket works great for that. Leave them in there for a few days so they can "disgorge" themselves. Basically what that means is they have no food and what they were digesting when you picked them they need to eliminate, excrete.
After a few days you boil them in water, pick them out of their shells. Then you put the empty shells back in water with bleach. You want nice clean shells. Then with a toothpick you stuff the snail back into it's shell and stuff the shell with garlic butter. Or if you are not serving them again in the shells you can jsut leave out the snail meat and cook it in say a tomatoe sauce, also quite tasty.
On top of the wast paper basket is a pizza pan and you can see how the snails stick to the underside of the pizza pan. We are having a Journalist from Milwaukee magazine come visit us in early October so we will be freezing these snails in order to prepare them for a meal when she is here. It should be fun!!!