SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #262

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Peters, Rise J. wrote:
> 
> People eat snails, and have done for a long time.  Does anyone eat slugs
> (horrid thought).  If not, why not?

"For ways that are dark, and tricks that are strange, the heathen Chinee
is peculiar..."
									Brett Harte, American poet c. 1900

I hope my wife isn't reading this! The above line is often quoted at my
house, usually just before I get a frying pan upside the head...I
mention this only because the Chinese do eat sea cucumbers, which are in
fact echinoderms related to starfish and sea urchins, but which
Chinese-Americans often translate into English as "sea slug". Wouldn't
surprise me one bit if slugs of some kind were used in herbal medicine,
if not in food.

Oddly enough, I've just checked Calvin W. Schwabe's "Unmentionable
Cuisine", the Bible of what I like to call "alternative protein
sources", and there are no slug recipes in it. Snails, yes. Maggots,
earthworms, bee grubs, spiders, and a huge variety of other foods that
are too wonky even for me. I can't decide if the lack of slug recipes is
because the author figured he didn't want to go too far, or if it is a
safe bet that any recipe for snails will be good for slugs.

I suppose it's possible they may be poisonous. Not likely, though.

On a side note, my son's kindergarten class had a tankful of lovely, fat
escargots as class pets until last June. They were looking for someone
to take them home over the summer, and I had my eye on them, with
visions of either garlic butter and parsley, or veal bordelaise sauce,
dancing in my head. Somebody else took them home, though. Sigh.

Adamantius, whose lady wife is EXTREMELY tolerant, BTW. She'd have to
be...
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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