Snails.

To begin this post, I must confess that I get grossed out fairly easily. In college, my guy friends would have competitions to see who could gross me out the most at lunch. In the second grade, while the rest of the gifted kids were bonding with their parents whilst dissecting cow's eyes, I was trying not to lose my breakfast all over my mother. In grad school, I almost passed out when a sheep's brain, covered in dura mater, was placed in front of me (look it up if you dare). So, task 48 was not going to be an easy one.
This past weekend, I went to dinner and a Christmas play with a friend. We ended up going to a nicer restaurant I had never been to before, and I was thrilled to see that escargot was on the menu. I ordered some crab bisque along with it, just in case I couldn't keep the slimy things down.
When the server brought it out, I was shocked. First of all, it looked like a pot pie.


Second of all, there were no shells, for which I was very grateful. They had tucked the little bodies inside mushroom caps. I was pleasantly surprised to find they weren't as rubbery as so many people had warned me. Maybe they were overcooked, but I'm just glad I did not have to spend 5 minutes manducating the equivalent of a slug. The flavor was actually pretty good, but it took a lot of concentration to avoid thinking "I am eating a snail."



34 down. 18 to go.

To end this post, I would like to quote Dave Barry: "Escargot is French for 'fat, crawling bag of phlegm.'" And now, a video. I have no idea what the lyrics mean, as they're in French. All I know is I got a little sick to my stomach, when I realized I might have eaten the siblings of this poor little snail... (The trail of slime didn't help, either.)