Post by Ismail AbdulAzeez on Dec 28, 2013 21:54:44 GMT 1
They're high in protein and iron, contain little cholesterol or fat, are cheap to raise and don't need much space. Move over, backyard chickens. Snails could become the new darlings of the grow-your-own food set.
Long eaten by the French, common or garden snails (Helix aspersa muller) were introduced to Australia in the 1800s but we've been slow to give them a regular place on our tables.
Client marketing co-ordinator and avid gardener Lei-Lani Terrell tips snails as the next big thing. ''We've had enough burgers and pork belly. Maybe we can try something else.''
Fed up with gastropods ravaging her small Fitzroy North garden, she recently overcame a lifelong aversion to raise a boxful for dinner.
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After doing some research, Ms Terrell rounded up the pesky snails and confined them to a flyscreen-covered timber box for several weeks, feeding them home-grown parsley and silverbeet and regularly changing their water and cleaning their quarters.
Braised in wine and herbs and served with garlic butter, the snails were such a hit she's planning a dinner party around her next brood.
Initially, she found removing the snails from their shells ''kind of gross, I'm not going to lie''. But the more she handled them, the less it troubled her. ''They're just like any other mollusc, really.''
But Vincenza Alexander from Gippsland Escargot in Mirboo North warns against eating wild garden snails. ''It can be really dangerous. They could be eating toxic weeds or next door's slug pellets, so you've got to feed them the right food to detox their systems and purge them properly.
''If you're picking them out of the garden, they need to be in quarantine in a clean environment for 30 days being fed goodies before you even consider purging them.''
Her pampered charges are kept in a contained environment eating a balanced diet of proteins and calcium. ''It's like a resort for snails,'' jokes Ms Alexander. ''We breed them, grow them and cook them so we know where our snails are coming from.''
The snails end up in various dishes at Cafe Escargot, the restaurant she runs with husband Doug. ''Our customers love them,'' says Ms Alexander. ''They love the flavour and the way our escargot is so lovely and tender.''
Yarra Valley Snails' Robyn Schrader says her phone runs hot ahead of July 14, when people want snails for French-themed Bastille Day menus, but the molluscs take 10 days to clean and prepare and hibernate in winter, so many miss out.
Ms Schrader's attitude has changed since she established her small-scale Taggerty snail farm about nine years ago.
''I grew up in Croydon on a large corner block with ivy and agapanthus everywhere and after the rain mum and I would go out and piff snails on to the road for the birds to pick up the next day. We'd get 300 or 400 on a good night.
''These days, if I'm walking anywhere and I see a snail on the footpath, I rehome it into somebody's garden so it won't get stepped on.''
Source: www.theage.com.au/victoria/slow-food-on-the-rise-as-snails-crawl-on-the-menu-20131227-2zzsx.html#ixzz2onwiVqFP
Long eaten by the French, common or garden snails (Helix aspersa muller) were introduced to Australia in the 1800s but we've been slow to give them a regular place on our tables.
Client marketing co-ordinator and avid gardener Lei-Lani Terrell tips snails as the next big thing. ''We've had enough burgers and pork belly. Maybe we can try something else.''
Fed up with gastropods ravaging her small Fitzroy North garden, she recently overcame a lifelong aversion to raise a boxful for dinner.
Advertisement
After doing some research, Ms Terrell rounded up the pesky snails and confined them to a flyscreen-covered timber box for several weeks, feeding them home-grown parsley and silverbeet and regularly changing their water and cleaning their quarters.
Braised in wine and herbs and served with garlic butter, the snails were such a hit she's planning a dinner party around her next brood.
Initially, she found removing the snails from their shells ''kind of gross, I'm not going to lie''. But the more she handled them, the less it troubled her. ''They're just like any other mollusc, really.''
But Vincenza Alexander from Gippsland Escargot in Mirboo North warns against eating wild garden snails. ''It can be really dangerous. They could be eating toxic weeds or next door's slug pellets, so you've got to feed them the right food to detox their systems and purge them properly.
''If you're picking them out of the garden, they need to be in quarantine in a clean environment for 30 days being fed goodies before you even consider purging them.''
Her pampered charges are kept in a contained environment eating a balanced diet of proteins and calcium. ''It's like a resort for snails,'' jokes Ms Alexander. ''We breed them, grow them and cook them so we know where our snails are coming from.''
The snails end up in various dishes at Cafe Escargot, the restaurant she runs with husband Doug. ''Our customers love them,'' says Ms Alexander. ''They love the flavour and the way our escargot is so lovely and tender.''
Yarra Valley Snails' Robyn Schrader says her phone runs hot ahead of July 14, when people want snails for French-themed Bastille Day menus, but the molluscs take 10 days to clean and prepare and hibernate in winter, so many miss out.
Ms Schrader's attitude has changed since she established her small-scale Taggerty snail farm about nine years ago.
''I grew up in Croydon on a large corner block with ivy and agapanthus everywhere and after the rain mum and I would go out and piff snails on to the road for the birds to pick up the next day. We'd get 300 or 400 on a good night.
''These days, if I'm walking anywhere and I see a snail on the footpath, I rehome it into somebody's garden so it won't get stepped on.''
Source: www.theage.com.au/victoria/slow-food-on-the-rise-as-snails-crawl-on-the-menu-20131227-2zzsx.html#ixzz2onwiVqFP
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