Molluscs and Me

This posting is to let you know I have set up a new blog on Wordpress called Molluscs and Me which is the title of the book I've written about the experience of setting up and running the snail farm. Between the chapters are recipes and information about snail farming and cooking around the world. See you at: www.molluscsandme.wordpress.com

Snail Caviar

Snail caviar is a delicacy that is not yet produced in Britain. But I plan to change that. There was an article in the news earlier this year suggesting that the British market was ready for this innovation and that's what I'm investigating now:

'It has taken France and Spain by storm and now suppliers are desperate to turn it into a hit with Britons. Snails eggs could soon be lining the shelves in the UK as chefs throughout Europe rediscover the delicacy, known as 'white caviar'. Already stocked in tiny cans by Harrods, the tiny pearl-like eggs have been used in banquets for wealthy Romans, Egyptians and Greeks for centuries. They are also known as 'pearls of Aphrodite' for their aphrodisiac qualities and are best marinated in herbs.

Labour of love: It takes four hours to fill a 50g tin with each egg hand-selected using tweezers. Now farmers are trying to cash in on the new craze by cultivating the molluscs, a kilo (2lb 3oz) of which can sell for up to £1,600 (1,800 euros). The high cost of the eggs, which are still cheaper than the finest beluga caviar at 4,000 euros a kilo ... makes it a risky investment.' (extract from Daily Mail Feb 2011)

Have you ever tasted snail caviar? I have and I was very impressed. The pearly white spheres burst on your tongue releasing a mushromy aroma.

I'd like to know if there are chefs, caterers and enthusiastic home cooks out there who would like to buy locally produced snail caviar. Let me know: info@snailfarm.org.uk or post a comment.

Snail pizza

For some reason, I didn't know that pizza didn't have to have tomatoes on it! Apparently the Italians put all sorts of things on a pizza base. Helen Parkins (@A Kentish Kitchen ) made a wonderful pizza with purple sprouting broccoli, fried onions, roquefort, parma ham, some of my snails salt and pepper and fried sage leaves crumbled over the top. It has inspired me to try all sorts of other combinations. Helen suggested black kale, turnip tops or nettle instead of the purple sprouting and I wondered about using small fish like fresh anchovies or something caught in waters around the British Isles like small sardines.

We began our feast with Helen's sobrasada mash which is, as she says, comfort food. The bright pink sausage is combined completely with creamy mash potato and then served with hot buttery snails - a real winner!

Helen suggested treating cooked snails as though they were squid. She showed me a Malaysian recipe for squid which we thought could be adapted. It uses hot red chillies, paprika, shrimp or anchovy paste, garlic and onion, sugar and lime or lemon juice. We didn't have time to try it today but I think it is definitely worth a go.

My cider recipe for cooking snails

Alcohol is an essential ingredient in cooking my locally grown edible snails and here is how to use the local cider. The flavour of home cooked snails will beat anything you've tasted on holiday.

Make your cooking stock with the following ingredients:
1oo ml cider
1 litre water
1 crushed clove garlic,
chopped shallot,
chopped carrot,
sea salt and black pepper
1 clove, 1 bay leaf, small sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg,chopped parsley and thyme (could be dried or fresh)1 whole bird’s eye chilli (don’t break it up or the stock could be too hot)
(One litre of stock would cook a kilo of snails.)

Make a 10% brine preferably with sea salt

Bring a large pan of water to rapid boil and add salt. Drop the sleeping snails into the boiling water and bring back to the boil for five minutes. Plunge them into cold water after blanching so that you can handle the shells to remove the snail using a fork. Twist the snail following the shape of the shell to remove it and rinse in cider vinegar to loosen the slime.

Drop the de-shelled snails into hot brine and boil for thirty minutes to remove slime.

Remove the snails from the brine and drop them into the hot stock. Bring back to the boil and simmer for about one and a half hours. I use a slow cooker for this part of the process so that I can be sure they will simmer and won’t boil dry.

At the end of the cooking process turn off the heat and leave cooked snails in the hot stock while you prepare the garlic butter.

For the garlic butter:
Per 250 gm pack unsalted English butter (taken out of the fridge well ahead of time) which should do 5 or 6 dozen snails, depending on how much you like garlic butter.
20gm chopped garlic
40 gm chopped shallot
Freshly picked parsley – enough to colour it green
Add cider to taste but try 70 ml

The herbs, garlic and shallot are most easily chopped in a food processor with the cider unless you are a skilled chef. Then mix well with the butter.Drain the snails well and reheat with the cider butter in a hot oven in an oven proof dish until the butter bubbles. Served with crusty bread and a side salad.

Smoked snails

Smoked food is very popular in Britain and I like smoked snails very much. I cook the snails in local cider first in the usual way, then transfer them to a sweet cure for a few minutes while they are still hot. If you leave them too long they will be too salty. Twenty minutes in one of those small domestic smokers is enough to impart a good smokey flavour without damaging the soft texture. I put brown sugar in the seasalt cure to give a little sweetness and smoke some garlic with the snails so I can pack them with the garlic and fresh thyme in local rapeseed oil. I kept an apple theme by using local cider in the cooking process and apple wood for smoking.

They could be vacuum packed if you don't want to eat them straight away. Smoked foods do freeze well but you don't want to damage the texture. I tried bottling them but it wasn't a good idea!

Eat them cold.

Cooking snails

Take your Snayles (they are no way so as in Pottage) and wash them very well in many waters, and when you have done put them in a White Earthen Pan, or very wide Dish, and put as much water to them as will cover them, and then set your Dish or Pan on some coales, that it may heat by little and little, and then the Snayles will come out of the shells and so dye, and being dead, take them out and wash them very well in Water and salt twice or thrice over; then put them in a Pipkin with Water and Salt, and let them boyle a little while in that, so take away the rude slime they have, then take them out againe and put them in a Cullender; then take excellent sallet Oyle and beat it a great while upon the fire in a frying Pan, and when it boyls very fast, slice two or three Onyons in it, and let them fry well, then put the Snayles in the Oyle and Onyons, and let them stew together a little, then put the Oyle, Onyons, and Snayles altogether in an earthen Pipkin of a fit size for your Snayles, and put as much warm water to them as will serve to boyle them and make the Pottage and season them with Salt, and so let them boyle three or foure hours; then mingle Parsley, Pennyroyall, Fennell, Tyme, and such Herbs, and when they are minced put them in a Morter and beat them as you do for Green-sauce, and put in some crums of bread soaked in the Pottage of the Snayles, and then dissolve it all in the Morter with a little Saffron and Cloves well beaten, and put in as much Pottage into the Morter as will make the Spice and bread and Herbs like thickening for a pot, so put them all into the Snayles and let them stew in it, and when you serve them up, you may squeeze into the Pottage a Lemon, and put in a little Vinegar, or if you put in a Clove of Garlick among the Herbs, and beat it with them in the Morter, it will not tast the worse; serve them up in a Dish with sippets of Bread in the bottom. The Pottage is very nourishing, and they use them that are apt to a Consumption.

The Compleat Cook, Nathaniel Brook, 1658

Reptile Food

In every clutch of snails there are some that never grow properly and can't be sold for human consumption so I sell them for reptile food. There are some lizards that like snails: skink, tegu and monitors. I believe some turtles eat them too.

I sell the snails in small quantities: 100 gm by weight and you can choose what size you want to suit your particular reptile pet. If you want larger quantities that can usually be arranged - just email and ask. www.snailfarm.org.uk

Of Molluscs and Me

Today I was copied in to a discussion between two conservationists concerned about the fate of Helix pomatia on the Kent Downs. The problem seems to be predation, possibly by the glow worm, though this is not definitely established. The numbers of Roman snails, as we call them, have fallen in a particular location - lots of empty shells have been found. Romans snails are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and glow worms are also rare. So if one rare species is killing the other rare species this leaves conservationists with an interesting dilemma. Is it legal to protect the snails by destroying the glow worms? I look forward to hearing the answer as it is relevant to the struggle I have to protect my snails from the attention of shrews. Further information on Helix pomatia from http://roman-snail.co.uk

Of Molluscs and Me

I've been experimenting with organic coir blocks from Fertile Fibre: www.fertilefibre.com. I'm using it in the polytunnel in the baby snail pens partly because the compost worms like it and it lightens the soil which can get very compacted. But I also like it because it holds water well to keep the humidity up and I am all in favour of farming solutions that avoid the use of peat. It is nice and light to handle too. The only downside is that it's imported ...but if we wait a few years we may even be growing our own coconut trees!

Snails with sobrasada mash

A new recipe for the book given to me by A Kentish Kitchen.

Sobrasada is a soft Mallorcan sausage, like pate and flavoured with Paprika to give it a deep red colour. You could make your own English version of pork pate but don't forget the paprika!

Mash potatoes with some sobrasada sausage and pour over it at the point of serving, cooked snails in garlic and herb butter.

Sweet potato can be used instead of ordinary potatoes if you prefer.

Of Molluscs and Me

I caught myself photographing worms today. These Dendrabaenas are fascinating because they seem to like climbing. They are supposed to be cleaning up the soil in the snail pens for me but every day I find more up at the top under the lid. The snails collect together in clumps and if I pick up a clump there is nearly always a worm curled up in there too.

Of Molluscs and Me

I can't believe it is so long since I wrote a blog. I just love this picture of baby snails. It is the translucent bodies and shells and the pale grey streak running down the antennae which I guess is the nervous system connected to their eyes. I'm taking orders now for mini snail farms with 6 cute babies for Christmas gifts.

Snail Smallholder kit

If you want to rear a few snails in your back garden or allotment read on. This is an opportunity for snail eaters to grow their own food. I will supply baby snails, an attractive predator proof pen for them to live in for the summer and a Smallholder Guide telling you what you need to know. Put it alongside your chicken run and have fun. www.snailfarm.org.uk

Saturnalia

Snails don’t do Christmas. They don’t want their antennae trimmed with baubles or flashing lights or their houses lit up with a jolly Santa complete with reindeer and sleigh. They wouldn’t know what to do with a sprig of mistletoe. For them Christmas Day is just another day. You don’t have to think about what to get them this year. They are the creatures who already have everything.

The winter solstice is very welcome when at long last the mornings and evenings start to get lighter. When edible snails were first brought to Britain by the Romans, this time of year was the festival of Saturnalia. There was lots of cross dressing and role reversal so being hermaphrodite would have had its advantages.

If you want to cook snails the Roman way you have to fatten them on milk. They were then fried in oil and served dressed with wine and liquamen, a sauce made from the fermented entrails of fish. Bon appetit!

Nanowrimo

Hibernation is a wonderful concept. I often think when it's cold outside that I'd like to just snooze the winter away. The temperature fell to minus three the week before last so the snails all had to come in from the cold. They were eating less and less outside so they'd stopped growing. Most are now crated up in my outhouse for the winter, but at the moment it is quite mild so they aren't asleep and probably wondering what's going on. It is only Autumn really and a wonderful one too with strong autumn colour on the trees.

And for me Nanowrimo is here! Let me explain: November is National Novel Writing Month and this year I have joined. I've cleared my desk and set myself the target of writing 50,000 words in November - that's 1666 words a day. I'm not writing a novel I have to confess: 'Of Molluscs and Me' is all about setting up and running the snail farm. I've been working on it for years a bit at a time but this is my chance to really get to grips with it. It's ages since I last spent any good length of time on it and I have to write about all the things that have happened this summer.

The clocks changing last weekend made things easier as I'm a morning person and I still wake according to the old time. If I start writing by 7.15 and eat breakfast at the same time, I can get my word count done by 8.30 or so and then get on with the rest of the day. What I've found is that when I write early like this, and resist the temptation to look at my emails first, my brain is still in the right mode to free write. It's like limbering up - going for a mental jog - so much better for my knees than a real one! Then I go on thinking of ideas during the day and jot things down as they come into my head. I've found less need to have the radio on once my brain is in writing mode. So here's to National Novel Writers everywhere!

Snail versus shrew

So far I have caught five tiny shrews just by picking them up with gloved hands and transferring them unhurt to a field not far away. I am just hoping there aren't any more as they seem to have eaten a lot of baby snails. I haven't actually caught them red-clawed but they were snuggled up with the snails and surrounded by empty shells which seems fairly decisive to me. Shrews are carnivorous and are supposed to eat earthworms and insects but in this hot dry weather I guess you can't get an earthworm for love nor money so it looks like they held their noses and turned to nice juicy snails.

Dusty and her mate Freddie ferret are helping to protect the snails by spreading their wonderful odour about the place, in the hope that the shrews will take the hint and dine elsewhere. I have some more baby snails in the nursery waiting to go out but I don't want to take them until I'm sure it is safe.

The good news is that the first of this year's snails have 'shelled': the front edge of the shell has turned up like the brim of a hat to show they've stopped growing. They've grown fantastically well outside where they have more space than indoors and a good diet of dry food supplemented by lots of waste fruit and vegetables.

Visitor numbers to the farm have increased now the summer holidays are here and UKTV were filming here last Monday. Look out for us in the Autumn on the Good Food Channel programme Market Kitchen with chef Mark Sargeant, formerly at Claridge's with Gordon Ramsey and now at The Swan at West Malling.

Cherry flavoured snails?

For a few short weeks this day tent provided shelter from the sun, wind and rain - though we didn't get much rain. Then one night a strong gust of wind blew it away.

But the Cherry Festival was fun. Lots of people crowded in to meet the snails who were feasting on waste cherries from the packhouse. The snails haven't turned noticeably pink yet. In between showing everyone round I did a cookery demonstration and sold hot snails as well as bottled: both flew of the shelves.

We made our presence felt at the Kent County Show the following weekend. I put together some snail rearing kits for people to buy with half a dozen baby snails and all they need. Hot and bottled snails sold well and I made lots of good contacts to take the snails on visits and give talks.

The next big event will be the Smallholding Fair at Sissinghurst 21 and 22 August. This is a first for me and I'm really looking forward to showing the snails in such wonderful surroundings.

In the meantime, I have a shrew to re-home. It has somehow got through the defences and taken up residence in the snail enclosure. On the whole I like small furry animals, but if they eat snails they have to go! Catching it alive is proving difficult so if anyone has any suggestions I would be pleased to hear from you.

Visit Faversham

June was very busy and I can hardly believe it is already July. Lots of things have happened:

This lovely picture was taken at Sandwich when I took the snails along for Le Weekend - their twinning event.

We've made it onto the visitor attraction websites: http://www.canterbury.co.uk/things-to-see-and-do/Faversham-Slow-@-Grow,-Slow-Summer-Snail-Farm/details/?dms=13&feature=1&venue=3037860&easi=true
In June we also featured in an article in Speciality Food Magazine with a picture of me with the Natalia and the snails.

We've applied to register with the Children's University as a Learning Destination and now have worksheets for children to do alongside drawing and handling the snails. I also hope to become registered in the Autumn as an external provider to schools but I have to do some training first.

The website brings in some fascinating enquiries: one was from a school in Tenby where the children are studying Applied Science. As part of that curriculum they have to look after animals and we are discussing the idea that they could have some baby snails for a term and then return them to me. This fits well with the snail rearing mini-kits I am currently building for sale at the County Show. Look out for more details on the website.

Snail Farm Open

What's behind the door? To find out you will have to come and see for yourself. The snails started moving in on 29th May as planned and we have had lots of visitors wandering down the the end of the garden centre to find out what's going on. I was musing on the concept of freedom food and decided it really couldn't apply to snails. The bird netting, metal barrier sunk into the ground and electric fencing are essential if I want to find the snails still there waiting for their breakfast each day. So far I have managed to keep the free range chickens out but a sparrow blundered in by mistake one hot afternoon. It sat for a while looking round with amazement and eventually worked out where the door was.

The ground has been seeded and with last night's rain it should start to green up soon, though the thistles, dock and bindweed are doing quite well. I hope the ground is green soon as we have TV cameras coming in a couple weeks time.

The snails will be visiting Sandwich for a couple of days for Le Weekend 12/13 June: http://www.open-sandwich.co.uk/events/leweekendl.htm so Slow@ Grow will be closed for those days.

The next events on the Brogdale calendar will be Soft Fruit day on 27 June and then the Cherry Festival 10/11 July. I am planning a cookery demonstration for the Cherry Festival. Then the following weekend is the county show so I will be in Maidstone for three days 16/17 and 18 July and Slow @ Grow will be closed for those few days too.

Building the farm

Chris and his team from Willow Landscapes have made rapid progress with building the farm enclosure, though the lovely warm weather has probably helped.

We had half a page in Your Swale this week:
http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/ see page 8/9.

KM online want to make a video when we are open and Great British Food Magazine plan to publish a piece about us too.

I will be running Slow Summer Snail Farm on my own which means that I will not always be there. However I will need to go there at some point most days to feed the snails. I will fit that in with my other work commitments but I am most likely to be there in the afternoon during the week but longer at weekends. There is a phone number if visitors want to check when I will be there: 07811395974 and I would like groups to book. The 50 p per child charge reflects the focus at this stage of the year on providing an educational experience for children. For this introductory period I will charge £1 for anyone over 16. Children under 3 would not be charged for.

The snails will be particularly pleased to see you if you come bearing gifts. They like the stalks of cabbage, cauli and broccoli - the bits you throw away, along with that apple that has been sitting in the fruit bowl too long or the odd carrot. When the veg growing season really gets underway they would be delighted if there was a glut of courgettes or your lettuces bolted. Whatever it is in the waste fruit and veg line - bring it along and find out what they like best.