I know people don't want to hear it, but when cooked correctly, wild-caught African land snails are actually delicious. They do take some work to scrub the foot pad, and you want to cook them for a long time to both soften them up, and obviously to ensure there's no parasites left. But in a Ghanaian spinach soup - amazing.
I say wild caught, because farmed snails are fed wilted lettuce, and taste like wilted, rotten lettuce.
MrDrMcCoy 6 hours ago [-]
Good flavor I can buy, but the last time I tried snails it was the texture that had me gagging.
10729287 6 hours ago [-]
To be honest most of us French only love it for the garlic butter we serve them with.
williamdclt 4 hours ago [-]
That's kind of why I don't really like french snails: it's mostly about the butter, and I don't find eating a chunk of butter to be a pleasant experience really! Give me garlic butter on bread any day instead
It's not the only way the french eat snails though, in the south it's eaten in a tomato sauce (catalan-style as they call it, so probs not just a french thing)
fhdkweig 2 hours ago [-]
Americans eat lobster for the same reason. It was considered trash food until we discovered garlic butter.
I still consider it trash food. I have a firm policy of not eating any seafood that wears its skeleton on the outside.
kergonath 2 hours ago [-]
French escargots are smaller. I can see how the texture would be off-putting in a snail that’s about ten times as big.
10729287 46 minutes ago [-]
Whelks come to my mind. I like them with ton of mayonnaise but it’s hit or miss. When I get it out of its shell, if it’s take too much time to see it unfold completely, I know I won’t have a pleasant time. You never know what you’ll get with them. Snails are more predictable.
The article only briefly mentions the horrors of rat lungworm, but if you live in a warm, tropical climate where this is prevalent (Hawaii, increasingly Florida) you really want to avoid it.
Apparently there is some evidence that people born in regions where it is more prevalent have some natural resistance.
The main way to get it is accidentally ingesting an infected slug on raw produce, like leafy greens.
I remember when those snails invaded bombay in the 80s. saw one or two, and then they were suddenly everywhere. it was amazing how fast it happened.
dspillett 2 hours ago [-]
https://archive.is/CPsFp - to view without individually unchecking 1249 “legitimate interests in stalking you around the Hinterwebs” flags…
codedokode 14 hours ago [-]
Small snails look cute but 8-inch snail sounds a bit scary. Also how do they avoid being eaten by predators if they are slow and vulnerable?
Also I recently saw small slugs which were crawling on the sidewalk along with worms who get to the surface after rain. I wonder what those slugs were planning to do given its middle of October and temperature is merely 10°C (50F)?
pixl97 13 hours ago [-]
Some things eat them like opossum and foxes, but the snails spread bad parasites so animals might learn to avoid them.
They can fertilize themselves so you only need one. And they lay 1600 or so eggs a year in batches of around 200.
They are breeding machines.
kergonath 1 hours ago [-]
> Also how do they avoid being eaten by predators if they are slow and vulnerable?
They mostly don’t. They just breed fast enough to compensate.
PeterHolzwarth 14 hours ago [-]
"but 8-inch snail sounds a bit scary"
Avoid Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.
planckscnst 10 hours ago [-]
I've lived in Seattle for 12 years and have never seen a slug here let alone a large one. I have seen those sidewalk worms after the rain, though
derektank 8 hours ago [-]
Banana slugs are long but not particularly large. Also, you only rarely see them in cities
fermentation 9 hours ago [-]
These giant snails are actually also really cute
karim79 14 hours ago [-]
My personal favourite parasite is the human botfly:
This bastard is a fascinating one. I mean there are others, but this one is close to my heart.
throwup238 11 hours ago [-]
I recommend reading accounts of traveling through the Amazon, like The Lost City of Z. The number of pests in rainforests that do horrifying things to the human body is astounding and the botflies are only one of them. Makes me thankful for modern conveniences like pure DEET.
karim79 18 minutes ago [-]
I just searched that and it looks great! Will check it out, thank you.
duskwuff 10 hours ago [-]
> this one is close to my heart.
That sounds dangerous - you should probably see a doctor. ;)
karim79 20 minutes ago [-]
Hahaha I knew someone would drop this pun.
xyxc 6 hours ago [-]
My favourite band.
DonHopkins 2 hours ago [-]
Running in slime, my body's so slow, everyone else is way too fast.
I can't exchange this living shell, give me some salt, and turn me to jell.
> The snails, which actually grow to about eight inches in length, but can stretch—if nothing else, for headline-writing purposes—to nine inches, have worried Florida authorities since 1969.
The salt river northeast of Phoenix has been infested with apple snails from central america - they get up to 6" or so. The forest service regularly runs events where people in kayaks and on paddle boards help clear that section of river of the clumps of eggs.
ButlerianJihad 14 hours ago [-]
I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than two meters!
8 hours ago [-]
walrus01 15 hours ago [-]
We should get Trent Reznor's opinion on these.
anticorporate 2 hours ago [-]
I just imagine a field of giant snails approaching me at a glacial pace, all loudly singing "Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve." Nightmare fuel.
giardini 15 hours ago [-]
paywall.
chihuahua 13 hours ago [-]
One of the world's most 1EET H4X0R5, who hasn't left his parents' basement in 10 years and is rumored to be the operator of 5chan, told me that you can use archive.is to circumvent most paywalls, including that of The Atlantic.
ggm 13 hours ago [-]
Or, and don't take my word for it, ask Abraham Lincoln, who told me to try "reader mode" in Firefox.
doginasuit 3 hours ago [-]
Abraham Lincoln's recommendation didn't work for me, reader mode shows the abbreviated text.
masfuerte 4 hours ago [-]
Or disable JS. I didn't know The Atlantic had a paywall.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/10/giant-african-sn...
I say wild caught, because farmed snails are fed wilted lettuce, and taste like wilted, rotten lettuce.
It's not the only way the french eat snails though, in the south it's eaten in a tomato sauce (catalan-style as they call it, so probs not just a french thing)
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=was+lobster+considered+peas...
Apparently there is some evidence that people born in regions where it is more prevalent have some natural resistance.
The main way to get it is accidentally ingesting an infected slug on raw produce, like leafy greens.
Here's a podcast on this parasite, what's known about it and how to avoid it: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-daniel-and-kellys-extraor...
Also I recently saw small slugs which were crawling on the sidewalk along with worms who get to the surface after rain. I wonder what those slugs were planning to do given its middle of October and temperature is merely 10°C (50F)?
They can fertilize themselves so you only need one. And they lay 1600 or so eggs a year in batches of around 200.
They are breeding machines.
They mostly don’t. They just breed fast enough to compensate.
Avoid Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatobia_hominis
This bastard is a fascinating one. I mean there are others, but this one is close to my heart.
That sounds dangerous - you should probably see a doctor. ;)
I can't exchange this living shell, give me some salt, and turn me to jell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qQ1pomYzk
https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Nine_Inch_Snails
Delightfully self-aware.
:)
Brings back memories of Africanized bees
That is what journalism worth its paywall looks like.