slow fast-food ?

[brunni]

Please read this note before watching the clip !
"The first video in a new series of challenging culinary experiences sees our (The Guardian's) award-winning food blogger learn how to tackle the African Land Snail."
It is not for the faint-hearted !

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/jul/03/african-land-snails-video

"The 'foot', the rubbery appendage with which your average garden snail can cling to a rock or, we are told, slide unharmed along the edge of a razor is at least as big as the palm of your hand. This is important because this is the bit that, according to my expert guide Abiodun Olawunmi of the admirable A2 Delicious restaurant in London's glittering Catford, was the only part we were going to eat."

Maybe some members got comments to send to
Stella African Foods Ltd., ( Royer/Royal Lane ? - can't be sure of the name from the audio ! ), Peckham Road Market
A2 Delicious Cafe, Catford

PS : I had trouble downloading this clip, could only get to 2:21. My server is S---L---O---W---!

[foghog]

Not sure what the point of the post is? this is a petsnail forum (hence the name petsnails I'm thinking.) and people do not eat their pets traditionally. The video isn't about eating your pets, it is about eating snails. I mean I have a 350 gallon fishtank also, yet I eat fish too..... but I do not eat my pet fish..... are you pointing out how good snails are to eat, or are you hoping it will somehow get people upset in a petsnail forum, even though people eat snails all over the world and everyone knows it?

"In France alone, 40,000 tonnes (metric ton) of snails are eaten per year. A large part of those are, even today, snails picked in nature and imported from Eastern Europe and Turkey. ...yes thats 40,000 metric TONS / year. www.molluscs.at/gastropoda/terrestrial/helix/cultivation.html
what sort of comments should be sent "Hey that recipe looks pretty darn good."

[brunni]

I realize this is not a cookery forum, so no recipe appraisal necessary. I also don't want to upset forum members, hence my warning !
This is a forum for snail enthusiasts to post info related to snails ( GALS in particular ). This video is the first of its kind and one can learn :
- exactly how and where ( outside West Africa ) the meal is prepared
- what species are involved and where they came from
I don't know what problems some people got, heck somebody even posted a pic here today of a centipede. What should we do ? We all got an opinion, right ?

[foghog]

I wasn't condemning, I was legitimately wondering what the point was. you just don;t know on a forum who you are dealing with.I have no problem with it at all, imo it is a way of life, like I said just like eating fish, even though you have a fish tank at home. I appreciate the post personally, I have never seen a GAL being prepared that way, especially using the alum stone was interesting. I didn't like it that they bashed the shell in though, but I guess that would be the easiest...for the person of course, he obviously didn't care what the snail went through.

[coyote]

While it's true that the video isn't about eating your pets it's about eating snails, it is about eating the same kind of snails kept as pets by most of the members here. Indeed, some people's pet snails have been rescued from the food stalls at the Brixton Market; some of those snails were on death's doorstep prior to rescue. The conditions live animals are kept in at the Market are appalling, from the stories told on this forum, and several petitions have been organized to force the market to follow more humane standards for the snails sold there.

I'm not going to debate escargot. I'm not the food police. (Although it needs to be said that the vast majority of members here enjoy snails as pets and not as dinner.) Brunni does have a point about this forum, and I can see the rationale for posting such a link because of the information it provides, for people who otherwise would not know the facts about how the dish is be prepared. And Brunni did the right thing by posting an advisory ahead of time so people would not just jump in blindly.

[brunni]

I found the clip informative and it draws attention to the plight of these magnificent creatures. It seems they can be brought into the UK alive ( airfreight ? ) and cheaply enough to be sold as food. Their captive conditions are highly inadequate - see 2:11, all snails fully retracted with what looks like a load of juvenile shells. The guy presenting the telecast says something like "here is one looking a bit better than the others" ( before he pays for it to cook it ).

[foghog]

ah ok...THAT was the point of the clip....thats what I was asking..... so you were basically showing how they were 'abused' in their preparations for food and treated unfairly. I sort of agree, with the shell cracking part, even though thats how animals eat them so it happens all the time really. and snails being harvested by humans for consumption, are treated like a commodity and not humanly (which is obvious cause they are not human so many do not feel the need to treat them humanly. ) I am really amazed actually by the sheer volume of snail consumption myself....just france importing 40,000 metric tons is just unreal....and the US and other countries import a lot also. they are raised, and purged and stuffed inside bags usually and treated like they are unimportant I guess is valid.... I am not against people starting campaigns for better treatment or market practices.
I am a meat eater myself though. no apologies on that, will ever happen either. it is natures way for animals to eat animals, and I am a animal just like all other humans. we raise chickens, we raise cows, we raise pigs, goats, and well pretty much every other thing we use for sustenance. and we eat them after killing them (cause it's to much of a struggle to eat them before we kill them.) and they taste good. Snails are not any different. I am surprised really we do not eat dogs and cats frankly..... but we don't really need to cause we have the other stuff....and in the US many do not eat snails cause they have the other stuff. so it works out. guess if this was a chicken pet forum, people might be for eating snails and saving chickens..... though honestly most chicken collectors I know of, love eating chicken too actually. same with people with pet cows.

[brunni]

Don't be so sure about the cat & dogs bit. You would be surprised at some of the things to be found in markets all over the world including Africa & Asia. You would also be shocked at the volume of kangaroo meat imported into UK & US annually. Which reminds me of rats, considered by many a delicacy, not to mention guinea pigs, etc. My intention was not to publish a rabbit stew recipe on bunny forum.
And the "abused" bit was not the only point of the mail, it was how the whole thing works. Fresh GALS stew right in the middle of London !

[coyote]

Most Westerners have taboos on eating carnivores. And not all of us here eat meat.

[pinkunicorn]

I must confess, I'm very torn on the matter of eating snails. I'm a stubborn environmentalist, and from that point of view eating snail meat is definitely the better option, if the other option is eating the more traditional western meats. Heliculture is rather more ecological than farming cattle. Of course, skipping meat entirely is the best option for the environment, but as long as we're in the realm of eating meat... it's a complex matter with lots of points on all sides.

[myrtle]

Couldn't look & don't want to. In the past I have been laffed at by ( so called) friends for not wishing to eat Snails. I look at my Slimey friends and I know why.

[brunni]

Eating snails is a personal thing, some do, some don't. It's a matter of choice like being a vegetarian. I ate snails once some time ago on a visit to France. To me they tasted like rubbery lumps of garlic and I would would not eat them by choice again. On the other hand I love to eat some marine shells ;D ( eg. mussels, oysters, cockles, etc. )
Snails are a relatively cheap source of protein and are very widely eaten, especially in developing nations. Some species are very easy to keep in captivity.

[ness]

Eating snails. Well it's not something I fancy doing personally, unless it was a case of survival, simply on the basis that eating any mollusc apart from squid would turn my stomach. Eugh. I recon I could eat meal worms and crickets etc, but not mollusc. Shell fish and snails are fascinating animals but the thoughts of eating one - ooooooh nononononono NO!.

That aside they are an excellent source of protein, and in countries where meat is scarce snails are cheap/free, plentiful and nutritious, therfore necessary. Also in terms of suffering (and I'm not talking about Brixton Market) for one to collect and cook a snail I would say that there would be less suffering involved than taking a mammalian or bird animal to slaughter, and certainly less suffering than intensive battery-style farming.

So no I'm not against the idea as such but personally would have great difficulty in putting anything like that in my mouth. Oh and yes I would feel some guilt too, logical or not.

Just in case anyone reading this doesn't know, but fancies the idea of trying snails - like many creatures they are hazardous to health if not properly cooked due to the rat lung worm. People die each year from eating raw or undercooked snails.

[rosiesnail2]

I remember 2 years ago my class went to France on a residential and I tried the snails- taste like garlic bred. Then a year later I got into snails as pets and mum and dad forced us to try them. They weren't as good from a can but I'll only eat them because its wrong to waste something if an animal had to be killed for it. But I won't be eating them soon