Small Game Hunting in France with Pics!

[rox]

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!!!

 

[Bird]

Rox, I've never tried escargot. I have a good friend of Mexican heritage (former next door neighbor) who tells me they're delicious, so I wouldn't refuse to try them, but that just never did appeal to me. Naturally, I know nothing about preparing them, and didn't know you kept them without food to let them excrete what they'd eaten. That reminds me of my first trip to Louisiana when a friend and I went and bought 51 pounds of live crawfish. He dumped half of them into a wash tub, dumped in a box of salt, then filled the tub about half full of water and left them awhile before dipping them out and putting them into a pot of boiling water with all the seasonings. He said they don't like salt water, so they keep trying to spit it out and in the process, flush themselves out before you cook them. And I see you had the pizza pan to keep them in the waste basket. I saw something on TV several months ago about the snails being raised commercially and they had an electric fence around the walls of the pens they were being raised in to keep them from going over the wall.

 

[mjarrels]

Only had snails once but they were great! Used to live on Penn Cove in Western Washington and would get bucket of Penn Cove mussels.

mark

 

[Egon]

Appetizers !

 

[Bird]

Only had snails once but they were great! Used to live on Penn Cove in Western Washington and would get bucket of Penn Cove mussels.

mark

I've eaten my share of oysters, clams, and mussels; just never tried the snails.

 

[czechsonofagun]

We cooked snails on a camping trip with my buddies, it was not exactly delicatesy, since we had no idea what we are doing.

We ate them anyway

 

[Chuck52]

Those snails look like....snails! Somehow I always figured the ones you eat would look different somehow. Of course they are bigger than most you see around here. The snails in Puerto Rico are that large or larger, but their shells are a flattened spiral, with a kind of point on one side. I wonder if they are edible?

Chuck

 

[mjarrels]

Ask any Navy Chief Petty Officer who was initiated in the Pacific Northwest what a slug taste like and they will know!

mark

 

[3RRL]

Hi Rox,
Interesting story you wrote.
I love escargot but it is an expensive appetizer here in So Cal. I think it's great you guys can hunt down your own. I've hunted snails myself, but not to eat. Mostly to get rid of them in my gardens. I didn't even use a waste basket either, but chased them down on foot and spread pellets.
BTW, what caliber waste paper basket does your husband use?

 

[gotrocks]

Rox, it's always a treat to read about what's happening with you in France.
Wish we could have made it over last year since our granddaughter was there for a school year teaching english. If we had I would have certainly contacted you to arrange a visit.

Now about eating snails to those of you who have never tried it.......

Be sure to Pace yourself.

(I wonder, did anyone get it?)