Escargot Etiquette

Dear YumYumCherry,
My boyfriend took me out recently to a very nice French restaurant in the City. He ordered Escargots for us as a starter course. How should one eat these properly?

Okay, well, I’m inclined to say that One probably shouldn’t eat snails, grubs or anything else you find under leaves on the forest floor unless you are in the cast of Fear Factor or Survivor #67–The Stupid Lost Tribes of Manhattan. Okay, that said, generally you are provided with utensils to extract those little suckers from their ‘Hidey Holes…’ Oh, wrong Riff.

I had escargots (they have to call them that because no one would order them if they actually printed SNAILS on the menu) at an Italian restaurant in the Lotte (Japanese) Hotel in Seoul, South Korea in 1983. Now, how do I recall this all so vividly?? Could it be the food poisoning and two day stint at the scenic 121 Evac Hospital of Yongsan? Yep, that may well have influenced my appreciation of the dish, but all the garlic butter and penicillin in the world couldn’t kill the fact that I was seated next to an aquarium throughout the dinner. I’ll let you fill in the blanks, but this is the stuff of which nightmares are made.

When in doubt, opt for the fresh greens with a simple vinaigrette on the side. You’ll thank yourself in the morning when you aren’t hooked up to an I.V.

Yummy