The first time in my life I have eaten snails I was about 20 when a boyfriend invited me into a restaurant and ordered something for me "as a surprise" I was and am always curious about plates I don't know and was happy about the surprise !
The starter was a plate looking like mushrooms but rather strange because they had a snail shell around. My boyfriend told me that these were snails and a gourmet plate for connoisseurs. They were served on a special metal plate and I especially liked the sauce with a lot of garlic, parsley in butter. With a nice piece of fresh french bread it really tasted good.
Unfortunately during the night I had a dream (or rather a nightmare) I dreamed that all snails crawled out of my mouth alive !! and without parsil and garlic ! So for a while I had enough from snails.
On fairs and festivals sometimes on markets already prepared snails are sold. I found these on the Waterloo Farmers market.
But later when we were invited for supper there were very often snails served as startes. Fortunately I had forgotten my awful dream and enjoyed them. We even got a snail service for our wedding.
My snail service. Dishes with hollows to place the snail, a tong to hold it and a fork to pull it out of the shell.
Unfortunately one day when we had snails at a friend's, Mr. G. told me about his childhood memories from Italy when his mother collected snails from their garden and put them in a wooden box for a week so they would fasten and empty their intestins. Then they were washed, thrown in boiling water and cooked. So for him it was a completely ordinary plate which on top was very cheap so they ate it quiet often ! Nothing to do with gourmet or connoisseurs !
From that day on I couldn't eat snails anymore. I always thought about the wooden box full of snails which emptied their intestins and the boiling water where the poor things were thrown in alive !
Now I replace the snails with big mushrooms and the same sauce and it is delicious !
