Well, as the only French girl around (am I ?) I feel I have to answer Patty !
To prepare snails you have first to starve (jeûner) them. I must
confess I've never done it myself, but I've seen my grandmother doing
it. So, that's what she used to do :
In the garden she had a little paddock (enclos) where she put the
snails she was able to find. When they was enough snails (a minimum
is 12 per person), she stops feeding them for a week "nobody knows
what they could have eaten" and them feed them with flour for a few
days "to be fatty". Then she put them in the salt till they stop
drooling, clean them and cook them in a court bouillon (water, white
wine, parsley, little garlic, onion, thyme, salt, pepper...). When
you can take them out of the shell,they are cooked. Take them off,
eliminate the entrails, the brown part at the end (if you leave it
it's bitter) and the operculum. The first part is over.
You have then to mix butter (take it out of the refrigerator one hour
before) chopped garlic and parsley, little salt, pepper. When your
butter is ready, put little butter in a shell, a snail and butter
again. You must then put the snails on a special plate in order to
have the aperture up (if you don't have it, you always find a way !),
put everything in a hot oven in order to have the snails grilled, be
careful, if they stay to long they will be "ratatinés" (shriveled
up). Ouf, it's ready !
Eat them with good bread and dry white wine.
To answer your question, yes it still have the taste of snails which
is delicious ! They are several other way to accommodate snails. Last
weekend I eat some in a restaurant from the south of France, they
where not put back in shells but sautés (cooked in a pan) with little
vegetables.
They are other kinds of shells you can accommodate the way my grand
mother did, mostly bivalves. Two weeks ago I've done palourdes
farcies (stuffed), may I say it was more interesting than the snails
? It's much easier because you don't have to starve the animal, just
fish them if you are in Bretagne, or have a good "poissonnier" (the
guy who sells the fish). Then you do a kind of garlic butter
slightly different than the one my grand mother did and melted
(fondu), foamy. Put it on each palourdes you've just open, add little
almond powder and take it a few minutes to the grill. There is
something magic in this recipe because the sea is still so present.
If you want the exact proportions for both recipes, let me know,
Sophie from Paris !
PS : I don't think the reason why my grand mother have less and less
snail in her garden comes from her consumption but from the use of
pesticide in order to save her salad from slugs (not eatable, in
France !). In Paris, sometimes you can buy alive snails in the
market, they come from breedings.
>Ok, so I may have to give this a go. Does anyone have any idea how to
>prepare the critters? Do they still taste -hum- snaily?
>
>And of course anyone who considers H. aspersa a delicacy is of course more
>than welcome to forage around my back yard (and especially the orchid house!)
>
>Patty
>
>Dr. Patty Jansen
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