From what I understand there are no land snails that are poisonous to ingest but sea snails are a different story (especially cone snails that emit a powerful neurotoxin to immobolize their prey). Even with land snails though you always need to ensure they are cooked well. Serving them raw or undercooked can result in severe illness due to parasites that the snails often harbor.

Thanks for the great post!! Maybe I will finally break down and set up a large humidified tank in the house some day to keep my own supply close at hand!!

At this stage I am eyeing a bush rat in my garden as a potential food source. It really likes to eat the female flowers on my spaghetti squash and zucchini. Thus no mature fruit. That said, I have tried some of the male flower and they are tasty and sweet, so I imagine that the female ones are fairly similar, thus irresistible to a rat with a sweet tooth.

Herbs were OK. The establishment was overflowing with them. Fresh when in season, dried if not. Problem with the dried herbs was, anything looking remotely ‘herby’ would get pinched and you’d find some dude trying to get high smoking it.

Garlic a lot more difficult. However when we were on kitchen rotation we’d stuff a whole bulb in a sock, and smash the hell out of it with a rolling pin, then return the pulp to the dish we were meant to be cooking.

Hey presto…garlic infused sock. Then if a dish we were doing at ‘home’ needed a bit of a lift, off with the sock, into the pot for a few minutes…..ta da! Culinary bliss.

The Big Dunc.

Funny enough, although raw snails are a bit like raw oysters (slime factor 10), cooked snails are more like calamari – somewhere around a 5. I don’t think they’d be much chop without the butter and garlic, though. Did you have much in the way of culinary herbs available to you?

http://permaculture.org.au/2009/02/02/interview-with-duncan-dunderstone/

Have to say Daz, you’re a brave lad. Me and Bubba had a long chat one night about cultivating snails instead of woodlice, as they were bu**ers to catch. However, we were fearful they wouldn’t pass the Slime Factor Test (Macadamia nuts in the shell 0/10, oysters & jellyfish & uncooked fish roe or semen Slime Score 10/10). Bubba needed a six or below, I’d hit an eight if starving.

What sort of a Slime Score would you give them mate?

Duncan Dunderstone

I read on one web site that there were no known poisonous snails. Not sure if I trust that, though. I’d hate my one claim to fame to be having a new variety of snail named after me posthumously!

Thank you for the education.

Search Google Images or Flickr or something for “helix aspersa” to see what they look like. I found plenty of pictures, and IDing them was easy.

Post photos etc when you give them a go and I’ll link to you. I’d love to hear what other people think – perhaps I can be convinced to have another go.