Snails recipes are for many people a delicious bite that makes them exclaim Ah, yummy! But for others, like myself, makes them exclaim Yuk! How can you have this?

However, and as it is said, there are people for all sorts of likes and dislikes. I don’t like them, except for the savoury and hotish gravy in which these little shelled things are cooked. If they are well cooked, the gravy deserves a good dip.

Alike with wild mushrooms, the search for snails should be in the early Autumn with the first rain, among trees and bushes. When I was a child, my family used to rent a house by the side of the Montserrat mountain near Barcelona. In autumnal days, and after a rain, we used to go out in the country to search for snails. Among bushes, there used to be loads of them that we collected and kept in a big bucket.

In the dark and store room, there was a big trunk where we kept them until my aunt got a big bunch of them to cook them and, I guess, to have a big feast on them too!

There are many different ways to cook them, but first of all they have to be boiled. It isn’t easy as they run trying to escape from their fate. Some cooks say that we should put them in a big stew pot full of cold water to boil. But others say that a good trick to get the snails out of their shells is to pour them when the water is boiling. They say that in this way the snails go out of their shells, allowing, thus, the eaters to get them easily. Otherwise, they will need to use a little stick.

Some people rear them at home, but needless to say they aren’t as tasty as those fetched in the country. It is the same as with battery hens and free range ones.

Snails make up a good bite down in the South of Spain. They can be cooked in a big choice of ways and all of them will be delicious, provided you like them.

This is an easy recipe that you can, perhaps, try on.

The ingredients

1 kilogramme of snails. A good bunch of almonds. A dried pepper. A small spoonful of ground chili. (bit less if if you don’t like it too hot) A slice of stale bread. 2 cloves of garlic. A twig of celery, extra olive oil and salt.

The preparation

When cooking snails, it is important to wash them well and it is not easy task as they keep escaping. They should be washed in cold water. It may be cruel to say this, but in doing so, we get to drown them. Once they are washed, we leave them in a big stew pot with cold water and covered with a lid for a couple of hours. Meanwhile, we shall cook the gravy, frying the peeled almonds and the two cloves of garlic. Then, we add up the bread, the dried pepper and the ground chili. We stir well and, afterwards, we blend it with little water. We pour this mixture in a deep frying pan, adding the twig of celery and the snails to be cooked on a low fire for about 15 minutes.

If you think you are going to like this, go out in the forest after the rain to fetch for a good bunch of them as we used to do. Don’t worry if this seems bit too cruel as we have to eat after all. I remember that when in the late 70’s many immigrants from the South who were working in in the textile industry in Barcelona were made redundant, they decided to go back to their towns, because and, as they put it, back there, they could always go out in the country to search for snails or to shoot a rabbit if they didn’t have a job and, therefore, nothing to eat.

After all, this is what the human race has been doing ever since they exist.