Snails!

I love snails/escargot. I only had them in two places (Krystal Thai in Crystal Lake and Graham Elliot), but they were incredible. I was told Bistro Bordeaux has nice ones too. What are your favorite places to get them?

I can vouch for the classic rich, buttery, garlicky version at Bistro Bordeaux. Now you're making me think I need to get back there soon.

Kiki's Bistro 900 N. Franklin

Le Petit Paris 260 E. Chestnut

I've seen h-mart have live whelk for sale a couple of weeks ago over the weekend if you are feeling adventurious about cooking them yourself.

I saw snails and conch at Fresh Farms too. I would love to, but I'm afraid of doing a bad job and having to eat a lousy meal and worse, wasting all that money.

Le Bouchon does classic escargot.

And everything else they do is good, too.

http://lebouchonofchicago.com/menu.htm

Le Bouchon
1958 North Damen Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647
773-862-6600

I second Le Bouchon. Snails are one of the things I order pretty much every time I see them on a menu (like octopus). Avec used to do a tremendous snail gratin back in the day.

Cynthia wrote:Le Bouchon does classic escargot.

And everything else they do is good, too.

The same is true of their sister restaurant in the West Loop:

La Sardine
111 N. Carpenter
Chicago, IL 60607
312-421-2800
lasardine.com

Both have the same specials, including half-price bottles on Mondays and a $27.50 three-course prix fixe on Tuesdays.

Pie Lady wrote:I saw snails and conch at Fresh Farms too. I would love to, but I'm afraid of doing a bad job and having to eat a lousy meal and worse, wasting all that money.

Upon your post, I thought to myself, how hard can it be to cook escargot and if it is so easy, why haven't I done so myself??

I did a quick search for some recipes and each one I can across suggests using canned escargot.

Is there some extensive cleaning process with fresh escargot that I'm unaware of (I would think a quick scrub & cooking) or is it just easier to source canned?

I think escargot en croute (individual snails in a small cup under a puff pastry 'hat' with plenty of garlic & wine) is probably my favorite preparation, although I haven't had it in years. The best version I remember is back from the early '80's at Kingston Harbour Yacht Club in Prospect Heights, a great restaurant that was only open about 3-4 years max.

My dad had a tiny piece of that place, and it was going great guns until the winter of '81-'82, when it seemed to be twenty-below every Friday & Saturday night, leading to tons of cancellations. They went a la carte after that, but were pretty much on life support by that time. A shame, but a common story I suppose.

Sweet Willie wrote:

Pie Lady wrote:I saw snails and conch at Fresh Farms too. I would love to, but I'm afraid of doing a bad job and having to eat a lousy meal and worse, wasting all that money.

Upon your post, I thought to myself, how hard can it be to cook escargot and if it is so easy, why haven't I done so myself??

I did a quick search for some recipes and each one I can across suggests using canned escargot.

Is there some extensive cleaning process with fresh escargot that I'm unaware of (I would think a quick scrub & cooking) or is it just easier to source canned?

Kind of depends on how fresh they are. If they're still alive when you buy them, you have to feed them milk for a couple of days, to clean out their guts -- or at very least, make them fast for five or six days. (So you really can't buy them the day you want to eat them.)

If they're not alive, they're probably already beginning to spoil, since they don't hold up well once dead. Frozen snails are going to have better texture than canned snails, and will be much closer to fresh.

That said, if you have a garden, check for snails after rain. You'll still have to do the fasting/cleansing period, but you can't beat the price.

Cynthia wrote:That said, if you have a garden, check for snails after rain. You'll still have to do the fasting/cleansing period, but you can't beat the price.

Are garden slugs the same critters people find in Europe and eat? Just by their appearance in the can, they don't seem to be the same critter. Have you done this yourself?

Regards,

Cynthia wrote: If they're still alive when you buy them, you have to feed them milk for a couple of days, to clean out their guts -- or at very least, make them fast for five or six days. (So you really can't buy them the day you want to eat them.)

If they're not alive, they're probably already beginning to spoil, since they don't hold up well once dead. Frozen snails are going to have better texture than canned snails, and will be much closer to fresh.

That said, if you have a garden, check for snails after rain. You'll still have to do the fasting/cleansing period, but you can't beat the price.

found this blog on cleaning/prepping snails, milk was not listed but the feeding then purging process was.

http://eatinggardensnails.blogspot.com/ ... nails.html

--

Cathy2 wrote:

Cynthia wrote:That said, if you have a garden, check for snails after rain. You'll still have to do the fasting/cleansing period, but you can't beat the price.

Are garden slugs the same critters people find in Europe and eat? Just by their appearance in the can, they don't seem to be the same critter. Have you done this yourself?

Regards,

Slugs are related but not quite exactly the same -- and some slugs carry parasites the consumption of which can have unpleasant and even life-threatening consequences.

And kind of going back on the comment about getting them from your garden, I'd actually recommend not eating snails from the garden unless you are fairly certain no one in the neighborhood has put out slug poison. (Because both snails and slugs are considered a pest in gardens.)

Absolutely safest bet is just buying frozen snails -- or finding someone who supplies restaurant (they're "farm raised" in that case). You still have to do the purge/fast if you buy them live, but at least you'll be certain they're safe.

Hi,

A French teacher from junior high school was a hidden (Jewish) child in Belgium during World War II. She adored collecting snails after rain showers, then dining on them a few days later.

Thanks for the clarification Cynthia on our local snails. If they were reliably edible, I probably would have been chasing them down long ago.

Regards,

For what it's worth, I bought escargot at my local Jewel a couple weeks ago. They came in a little steamer basket, and are already stuffed with butter and herbs. They're still in the freezer, but I'm excited to try them. I think they were on sale for about $9. Can't beat that!

Wow! Please tell us how they are!

We have made Anthony Bourdain's escargot recipe from his Les Halles cookbook and it was easy and tasty. Fairly traditional recipe with white wine, garlic, shallot, parsley, and butter. In the introductory paragraph, he mentioned that he doesn't know of any U.S. restaurant, although he acknowledged someone probably does, which uses fresh snails. He advised, "So do as the pros do: Find the best, priciest, preferably French canned snails (though the Taiwanese ones have been fooling the French chefs for years) and use those."

One day while buying cheese at the Binny's in Lakeview, I noticed a tube on the counter filled with snail shells. At the bottom of the tube is a can of snails. We used these and they were great. Indeed, this is likely what I've eaten and enjoyed at many bistros, including Kiki's, Bistro Campagne, and Mon Ami Gabi. I don't use the shells. I gave them to a colleague who does a lot of crafts, creative floral arrangements, and has three young children; she accepted them graciously, but when she left the job a year later I found them and a goodbye note on my desk!

We have a little escargot 6-shooter baking dish from the sale shelf at Sur la Table. I don't usually go for uni-taskers but this was cute, cheap, and doesn't take up much space.

bella54330 wrote:For what it's worth, I bought escargot at my local Jewel a couple weeks ago. They came in a little steamer basket, and are already stuffed with butter and herbs. They're still in the freezer, but I'm excited to try them. I think they were on sale for about $9. Can't beat that!

I will be curious about your impression when you try them. I bought a similar product in the freezer section at Paulina Meat Market, and while they were better than no snails, like many homemade vs frozen options, I preferred the homemade version, even made with canned snails.

Butterfly - OMG, their Thai Escargot are out of this world. Baked snailis in spicy Thai curry sauce, served with cheese garlic bread.

A story that should not be told. But it is awesome.
Many years ago my kid's kindergarten was looking for collections of local creatures for a sustainable environment. The kid and I walked to the local park and got four snails that we put into the terrarium.
A couple of hours later all heck broke loose. A fellow of a local museum "NEEDED" to know where the snails came from. As in RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT. All said and done, including DNA analysis, I still laugh. Apparently the snail colony was one of a set of snails sent from France in the 1930's (it took a six week time frame for this to be discovered) that had died out in France. Apparently the French colony was gone and the person who had imported the snails in the 1930's for a celebration who tried them, tossed everything into his garden that was flooded (I am assuming several times) and they moved downstream. A professor from France showed up at our house to thank the kid for his restarting a dead colony. We still run into grad students as part of our walk in the area

exvaxman,

An accidental contribution to preserving a species or at least a colony! Terrific!

Regards,

exvaxman wrote:A story that should not be told. But it is awesome.
Many years ago my kid's kindergarten was looking for collections of local creatures for a sustainable environment. The kid and I walked to the local park and got four snails that we put into the terrarium.
A couple of hours later all heck broke loose. A fellow of a local museum "NEEDED" to know where the snails came from. As in RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT. All said and done, including DNA analysis, I still laugh. Apparently the snail colony was one of a set of snails sent from France in the 1930's (it took a six week time frame for this to be discovered) that had died out in France. Apparently the French colony was gone and the person who had imported the snails in the 1930's for a celebration who tried them, tossed everything into his garden that was flooded (I am assuming several times) and they moved downstream. A professor from France showed up at our house to thank the kid for his restarting a dead colony. We still run into grad students as part of our walk in the area

What a great story. I love things like this. Thanks.

Bring boots and I'll take you there the next time you visit.
However, if enough folks know about the location (Hah!) it may be restricted.

Fantastic story, exvaxman! The one part you left out though... how do these rare French snails taste?

-Dan

Um, I do not know.
Really neat that my kid gets credit for "finding the colony" and has been mentioned in a few scientific journals. There is an issue (years old now) where we were threatened to not say anything because it would become a federal protection thing as opposed to a "look the other way" thing. Darn but discussions with clueless grad students are pissing me off.

However ,I gotta brag two years later, My wife and I brought in a cake and milk for the kid's 2nd grade class. The teacher informed the class as we were setting things up with my father observing, that there assignment was to tell her what Percy Spencer invented. I went into hysterics and then asked if it mattered how they learned. The teacher went "no?" And I went to Dad "tell a few Percy stories about how you had to get Charlie Aadams to give you the microwave account".

A Facebook post by my high school classmate Gabe Viti (about an upcoming appearance on the Cooking Channel's new show, "America's Best Bites") prompted me to look up the menu of his restaurant Miramar on line, and I see that he has an escargot appetizer on both the lunch and dinner menus.

Miramar Bistro
301 Waukegan Ave Highwood, IL 60040
(847) 433-1078
http://www.miramarbistro.com

Butterfly has amazing Thai snails - I get them every time I eat there. They are in a panang curry sauce. My mouth is watering.

Escargot in puff pastry with Pernod scented garlic butter filling at The Casino Club.



It takes self control to not eat these like popcorn.

Last month I enjoyed snails in the Marche region of Italy (they were prepared by an all-guy cooking club). Though usually associated with the French, snails are hugely beloved by Italians.



Last Friday, I mentioned to Emil Messina, my old Italian barber at the Oak Park Arms, that I had eaten snails in his homeland. I asked him if he liked them. I think he actually got a little misty when he said, “I love ‘em. Love ‘em.”

May 24th is National Escargot Day.