Snails in Italy.

[Pongi]

Can't say about Francesco's snails, but THIS snail isn't what I'm used to eat. Ours are larger and darker.

In Northern Italy, snails are rather diffused, although many people don't like them (also here, either you love or hate them! ).

In Lombardia, the region where I grew up, they're a part of the Christmas Eve menu...being a kind of "fish".

The traditional Christmas recipe is a snail stew with spinach.

Pongi

Edited August 27, 2004 by Pongi (log)

[Franci]

Franci - Is this the snail?

Adam, that is one! I had my father looking at it. It is the "garden" snail that I would find in the courtyard. There is another snail similar, much smaller, that you would find in June or July on the dried herbs in the fields (in puglia everything dries up in the summer...): cuzzedde.

Then, the lumache con la panna, helix aperta, closed up, because hybernated, that would come out with the rain, at this point you can find preatty big ones.

For the recipes, another time, going to union square market.

ciao

[Adam Balic]

Franci - Is this the snail?

Adam, that is one! I had my father looking at it. It is the "garden" snail that I would find in the courtyard. There is another snail similar, much smaller, that you would find in June or July on the dried herbs in the fields (in puglia everything dries up in the summer...): cuzzedde.

Then, the lumache con la panna, helix aperta, closed up, because hybernated, that would come out with the rain, at this point you can find preatty big ones.

For the recipes, another time, going to union square market.

ciao

Ah, now that was a good guess! I have eaten thee in Spain (in a rice dish, very good). They are a major pest in the USA (especially California) and Australia. They aestivate, rather then hibernate (that is they go torpid in the Summer), and you see then clustered all over the tops of thistles, road signs, anything upright really.

[Franci]

On Saturday, in Astoria, in an Italian Deli, they were selling LIVE snails, babbaluci in sicilian, Helix pisana, I tried to buy them, but my husband was shaking his head.......

Anyway, there is a kind of recipe. Sorry, no quantities.

Keep the snails to purge in a basket (with holes in the bottom), if you want you can feed them with herbs for a couple of days. Then usually they are sprinkled with fine breadcrumbs or bran for a week.

Put the snails in water and set on the stove, when the water is lukewarm, check if they are coming out (if not, discard them). Then rinse them with plenty of water and salt. Now you can boil them for about 1 hour, starting with lukewarm water. Meanwhile prepare a sauce with a soffritto of garlic and peperoncino, add crushed peeled tomatoes and laurel, halfway through the cooking add the drained snails and finish cooking.

[hathor]

Thanks Franci! I've been asking around and have gotten similiar advice on the purging. Now I have to go out and find some snails!!

[Adam Balic]

I second that thanks franci. I once staying in a Burgundian farm house for two week, during which I collected a large bucket of Apple/Roman snails. Unfortunately, I didn't realise they had to be purged etc, so in they were set free (very slowly) in the end.

[Franci]

Adam, purging is necessary! particularly if the snails were not farm raised, otherwise they could have eaten something toxic to humans: mushrooms for ex. One more thing: after the snails have been boiled for the first time, you can take

out the snails, clean from the intestine (the very far ending), rinse the shells, dry them and put back the snails. This is particularly advisable if you are going to stuff the snails afterwards.

If you read Italian, read this guy website, I found it very interesting:

lumache