SNAIL MALES AND FEMALES

A little while back I was at Milsoms, an interesting restaurant in Dedham, to celebrate my pal Nicola’s birthday. I saw snails on the menu as starter so immediately ordered them.  They came looking like this.

 

My own bad phone picture.

They were fine but a bit sweet and sticky.  I hadn’t read the menu in any detail so only later did I realized they were ‘Garlic snails on toasted sourdough, madeira & thyme sauce with parsley mayonnaise.’  And yes, that's a kind of potato waffle type thing perched on top. 

Three issues arose: one that I’m not very fond of madeira, two that it was a very long time since I’d last had snails – didn’t you used to see them on sale in any decent deli?  And three, my pal Penny who was also at the dinner said she thought snails were just a delivery system for garlic, butter and lemon.’ And you know I think she was absolutely right.

 

So I decided to have my own snail adventure.  First, I happened to know that the local antiques emporium had snail plates for sale.  They had a few different options and they’d been there a while, which was further evidence that eating snails may have gone off trend. I went for these metal numbers:

And then I bought a can of Burgundy snails (Helix Pomatia).  I had to go online - I didn’t know where else to get them.  And they were much more expensive than I was expecting – about 12 quid.

In a better world I would have bought shells as well, but that would have added another tenner to the price, making it a very expensive starter.  And yes we did use them as a delivery system for lemon, butter and garlic. Also parsley.  

Photo by Caroline Gannon.

I wish I could say that mighty bunch of parsley came from my own garden but it actually came from the farmer’s market, and cost less than a pound.  ‘You don’t get that in Sainsbury’s,’ the woman on the stall said, and how right she was.

 

And so it all went well.  Lemon, butter, garlic and parsley were all duly delivered. We ate them with untoasted slices of baguette which was fine – don’t overcomplicate things!

 

I’ll be trying again soon.  Now, I ask myself, am I spearheading a snail revival?  It seems unlikely.  However, according to Alan Davidson in the Oxford Companion to Food, a taste for snails has regularly come and gone throughout history.  The Mesopotamians ate them, the Romans domesticated them and bred them in vivaria, but there seem to have been centuries when few people ate them at all. Of course in Britain we associate snails with the French which means that many British folk have felt obligated to hate them.  Davidson writing, in 1999 or so, says he hopes such attitudes have gone never to return. He was an optimist.