Heliculture - a delicious alternative for dealing with your garden snails.

I have a newly planted Passion Flower against a south west facing wall but the root and lower portion of the stem is behind a mature box bush.

The moisture levels and shade from the sun have made it a perfect breeding ground for the common snail Helix aspersa aspersa. This is the common snail that you will see in the garden munching on all of your lettuces or in my case the Passion Flower.

I have to admit to using slug killer as the plant was becoming established because the pesky blighter's were stripping the young succulent green skin from the stems.

I was not aware that these little snails - called Petit-Gris in France are actually edible and if you have the stomach for it they are really easy to prepare and cook.

First of all you need to collect enough to make a decent portion for each serving. The snails average about 10 grams each so 6-10 will do for each person.

Purging

Your snails will have to be liberated from the anything that will cause grit and impurities to be passed through the snail so that you don't get a horrible grinding when you chew.

Give the snails a good rinse with a hose from the garden tap. The snails will empty their intestines.


Put your snails into a wooden box (not plastic) with preferably mesh sides for good ventilation. Feed your snails for a week on something that is safe for a human to eat. Lettuce is good and so it some kind of bran or oat meal.

After the week the snails need to be fasted - clean out the cage and layer the bottom with clean wood shavings and leave for another week - This causes the impurities to be purged from the snails bodies.

Preparation

Clean the snails by running under a tap and then place in a bowl of  water with a little vinegar and a good helping of salt. This is important, and it will be necessary to repeat the dunking and rinsing rinsing to cleanse all of the juices from the snail- it is a long winded process but you want to experience the snails as a tasty treat and want to do it again - it might need 6-8 repetitions of the salt.vinegar/rinse process .


Boiling Water
Bring a pan of water to the boil - add the snails and bring back to the boil for 5 minutes. Remove the snails from their shells - the purist will eat the lot but you may prefer to trim off the head and tail.

To appreciate the snails you should not overwhelm the flavour with anything strong. A mild milk garlic sauce - similar to mussels or a light garlic butter or maybe a very herby tomato sauce.

I have eaten snails many times in France and I am going to give this a try and I promise to report back.
The thought of the preparation does not fill me with excitement but having eaten these before the end product will make it worth the pain.

Snail farming - Heliculture - is becoming a popular pastime and a great way to provide a different free food. Snails are high in protein, low in fat and have no cholesterol.

Australians appear to be taking Heliculture very seriously and get this, France which is a major consumer of Snails  (escargot) cannot get enough and import over 40 tonnes every year from Italy.