Can you eat any snails at all

Question

i was wondering if there are any snails in minnesota you can eat.i found these really little snails at a creek and i was wondering if they are edible?if they are can you eat them raw or do you have to cook them?

Answer 1

i dont know about america but in europe the snails are edible and in brixton market they sell big african snails

Answer 2

I don't know about snails in your area, but if you do plan to eat snails you should detoxify them first, before cooking them.  You need to get rid of anything they might have eaten which would be poisonous for you.  You also want to give them a chance to let them get rid of their own waste inside them.

There's some information about eating snails (as well as other ideas about foraging for free food) in this article in The Times online:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_an...

The thing is that the article says to store and starve them for a few weeks.  Hmm, starve maybe but you'll need to give them water to keep them alive.  I also believe that you can feed them plain lettuce meanwhile, but I don't yet have a source for that info.  I'd thought that you feed them water and lettuce for a few days until it becomes clear that they're clean.

Answer 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escargot

you can but be careful....check it out.

Answer 4

The thought makes me shudder no matter what type of snail.   And I'm almost certain that they need to be cooked, but then, some people will eat anything!

Answer 5

I saw something on tv a few years ago about cleansing garden snails before you ate them.  I think you put them in a box with lots of cornmeal in there, and left them there for a few weeks...... seemed like alot of work to do for that:)

Answer 6

i don't think you can just go in the back yard garden and harvest escargot, i could be wrong. here's what i found on google. there are several pictures also on google if you search  "Helix aspersa" the snails latin name.

s there a difference between regular snails and the snails eaten in France as escargot, or could I head out to the garden and toss the pesky critters into my frying pan?

Feh. That said -- and far be it from AF to judge a fellow harshly simply for eating hermaphroditic, mucus-secreting vermin -- fire up your oven. The common garden snail found here in the U.S. -- Helix aspersa, the European brown snail -- is among those served in g*y Paree, and also in the typical uppity-goy American joint.

Note well, however, that you can’t just snatch ‘em up and scarf ‘em down. Snail hunter and escargot chef Victor Yool says you must first “put them through at least a two-week purging cycle, because there’s no telling what they ate” -- insecticide, for example, or a plant like foxglove, which is toxic to human beings, though not to the French. Yool maintains his snails in a plastic bin, feeds them cornmeal and water, and waits for them to p**p out whatever they’ve ingested prior to their capture.

When they’re good to go, Yool boils his snails for ten to fifteen minutes. “This forms an incredibly disgusting scum that you must keep cleaning off,” he says. “When the scum is gone, you know the snails are okay.” He then takes them from their shells; dices the meat finely; adds butter, olive oil, garlic, and parsley; restuffs the shells; and bakes “until they’re bubbling -- at most fifteen minutes. Or you can put them into puff pastry and avoid the shell altogether.”

Yool recommends serving them with a white wine or a mellow red, and of course, a plain brown vomit bag.

Answer 7

Whatever you do, you have to leave them alive for 3 days to purge themselves.

I don't know which ones are edible though.