Try Escargot

“I was surprised to see the green bubble-gum look alike with steam coming off of it and covered in garlic butter. Suddenly, I was less intimidated. The snails in front of me were not crawling across the table and did not have eyes to look back at me like I had imagined. The escargot was served on a plate of six snail shells with special tongs to hold the shell with a small fork to poke into the escargot. Once I got a grasp on how to use the tongs and fork with the escargot, I felt eager to be so close to trying an unknown food. Raising the escargot towards my mouth I smelled garlic and saw a small glob of deep green goo approaching. The savory garlic butter dripped from the chewy yet crisp ball that was effortlessly devoured. I wanted more.”

“The dish came out on a small plate with six snails still in their shells. A green coloured sauce filled the opening to the shell with the slug very visible beneath it. The waiter showed me how to attack the dish by holding the shell with the special “escargot instrument” (basically a specially designed set of tongs) and scooping the snail out with a tiny fork. The aroma from the dish was rather nice – buttery with herbs and garlic – but it didn’t look appetising at all. I grabbed my first snail, which slipped out of my tongs three times before I was able to secure it properly. Gripping it firmly, I scooped out the little snail covered in green sauce and shoved it in my mouth, half expecting to spit it straight back out. Well, you were all absolutely right – it was delicious.”

“The snails were served very hot, and the snail grabber thing and I had issues from the start. Being too hot to handle by hand, I had no option but to use the escargot device. I was inclined to squeeze it to apply pressure or hold, but it is reversed. When you squeeze the thing, it opens, and the snail would fall out. For the life of me, I could not get comfortable with this method, let alone secure a grip to extract the food from the shell. It was an epic fail, but somehow I persevered. I even managed to drop one of the shells onto the floor (that helped loosen the sucker up). That one came out easy. Eventually, I devoured all of the tasty gastropods and dumped that wonderful green sauce onto the bread. The pieces of bread were then used like a Q-tip, scraping out every last bit of goodness from the shells.”