'farming' garden snails- weird or not?

[BobbyBiscuits]

I've been 'farming' garden snails for eating for several years, but what do people think about this? Most of my immediate family think it's both cruel and gross. Others think they taste lovely, and don't see an issue.

I have a patio garden that gets infested with the wee feckers. They ate my new plant to a stick before in a day. Did beer traps etc but no avail.

I researched a great deal and found a method to use them to eat, and proceeded to do so.

Basically, I catch them, put about 12 in a big outdoor container with breathing holes, and put a carrot in to feed them. I clean their area out each day and then when it's time to eat them I withdraw the carrot till they make no stools. Then I can prepare them for cooking humanely by putting them to sleep first in the fridge.
I think it's a great way to get rid of garden pests and get protein.

Then I make lovely escargots.

Apart from the fact I already eat cows and other animals but not very often, aibu for doing this?

I wish you'd come to my garden and eat mine, they are causing devastation to my hostas currently.

Definitely don't microwave them. Boil in stock then hot oven in shells w garlic herbs butter.

My BIL does this, too. He's a country lad!

@GoodVibesHere do I have a family?
BC a person with living relatives couldn't possibly cultivate garden pests to eat as opposed to kill them or throw away?
Wtf?

I didn't intend to eat them @BobbyBiscuits just wanted to kill them to stop them eating my plants 🌱

I love escargot but I couldn’t be arsed with all that faff. And garden snails aren’t big enough to bother with, in my opinion. But if you can be bothered with all the effort, all power to you.

You’re also not doing anything cruel. Molluscs don’t have a brain or a central nervous system. They don’t have the capability to feel emotions or physical pain. They just have reflex reactions. They don’t have consciousness in the same way that vertebrates do.

Cooking and eating snails is no different from cooking and eating shellfish. The mussels, oysters and scallops we eat in restaurants are just aquatic molluscs, as are cockles, whelks and winkles from a kiosk at the seaside.

I'm very impressed but probably a bit weird.

You beat me to it 🤣

There's no scarcity of affordable protein in the UK, such that you'd need to go to the time and effort to source, feed, breed, kill, dress, clean and cook (horrid tasting) snails, other than patting yourself on the back for being Bear Grylls of suburbia.

@Celticliving @MyBrownEyedHandsomeBoy
Haha, very low. It's protein. And tiny. The butter you need to sort out the flavour is an issue, but you could say theyre keto. 🤣

@CinnamonJellyBeans I don't live in suburbia. If I did I'd probably try and hunt gazelles lol.
I don't need to do it for food. But it's really satisfying to know what effort is like compared to just buying a can of beans and mindlessly eating them like I do most of the year!

Yeah, the butter ain't workin' on Slimming World.

Shame, cos I would be all over this snail farming lark!

@Celticliving I'll donate you all the herbs and veg them bloody snails would have eaten in the wild? 🤣
Those bastards do need butter. No way round it sadly, lol

You got yourself a deal!

Lots of people do this in Touraine and Anjou ( probably other parts of France as well but I don’t know about them). We had a friend who kept quite a lot in two decommissioned chest freezers in his garden, they were good because the snails couldn’t get a grip on the inside and climb out. Or so he said.

He purged them as you have described though I don’t think he used carrots. Anyway, they tasted okay, or rather , they were a decent vehicle for the garlic and parsley butter.

Can I just say, I’m really enjoying this thread, it’s amusing, a bit weird/ gross and I really feel like I’ve learnt something.

I don't eat snails, but I read ages ago that you just keep them and feed them iceberg or lettuce for about two weeks and then they are safe to eat. Sounds like you are doing something similar with carrot. If you enjoy eating them, why not?

My parents are Italian & I was encouraged to eat snails from a young age, and also taught how to catch them after the rain. Did it in Italy more than in England but also I remember once opening an ice cream tub at my Nonna’s house & it was full of the things. They were being “dried out” ready for cooking. The ones in our region are traditionally smaller and whiter than garden snails here, but the bigger ones like escargots are also eaten, and encouraged to feed on herbs for a few days before they hit the pot.

I am grossed out by it now, but as a kid, I just treated them like farmed mussels or other shellfish.

You should see how they prepared eels for Christmas! Shudder.

@SocksAndTheCity I'm zone one as well, terrace 'garden' only.
Get a windowbox or 2, those bastards will be knocking. They seem to run away from mine once 'farming season' kicks in! When it rains, pm me, I'll bring a bucket.

Moluscs make me heave. I have a real phobia. Even looking at one makes me physically sick

@youlied I think I've the opposite. I love the shape of them. The shells etc. the taste..I also love octopus tentacles, the shape of those are so cool, with all the little suckers. Coral, sharks, puffer fish..It's just so visceral, visual, so tactile seeming. So cool to see..like scientific looking. Crustaceans as well. I loved drawing them in art class as a kid.

I remember an episode of River Cottage where Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall tried everything to make slugs tasty and nothing worked.

Good for you OP, my Dad used do this occasionally when I was a kid but he put them in a bucket of oatmeal to clean their guts. The carrot idea sounds better.

For those that eat other creatures, I don’t see much difference. Imo it’s strange when people think eating certain creatures is cruel and gross, but happily eat others.

I think it’s all cruel and gross.

I could not, but whatever floats your boat eh!

For those moaning that purging and in the fridge is cruel - they'd do exactly the same over winter, stop eating as temperatures drop/food sources dry up, go torpid once its cold enough. In the UK it gets signficantly colder than the inside of a fridge!

The bit that isn't humane is then cooking them alive, but there isn't a neat way to kill them beforehand that is quick, humane and doesn't ruin the meat. Snails do feel pain and are sentient (and a bunch of other stuff too).

How did someone figure out that snails are sentient? No really, I'm curious!