I just cooked a snail.

It ranks as one of the most traumatic cooking experiences ever.

Imagine this: I'm on my daily (hah!) run, and I see a bleached snail shell in the middle of the gravel path. I think to myself "I should stop and pick that up for Justin!" I grab it, try to shake out most of the rocks in it, stick it in my hat, and finish my run. (Ok, it was more of a walk. there are no excuses for being sadly out of shape.)

Back at the apartment, I rinse it off and stick it in the sink to soak as I shower. Once out of the shower, however, I look in the sink and see a snail and two antennae waving at me, and jump in fright. Then I think "oh crap!" Here's the predicament: if I put it back outside, it eats all my plants, and I want it's cool shell. On the other hand, I don't quite think I've killed anything non-insecty before, but I'm not willing to wait until it dies of natural causes.

Enter "Escargots from your Garden to the Table". Boiling a snail doesn't seem like that cruel of a thing to do, right? Once again, hah!

As I ready the chamber of death, I think "If I'm willing to eat snails, I should be willing to cook snails." And then I hesitantly pick up the live, raw, and wriggling snail, and I drop it in the pot like it's going to bite me. And wait. As it's floating around in the bubbling water, I wonder "is it dead yet???" So I wait more. Then I think "If it's not dead, and I try to pull it out of the shell, I'm going to be sooo freaked out if it starts moving. Maybe I should wait more." Exactly 5 minutes later, I think "well, here goes!"

My first attempt to pull it out of the shell with a dining fork doesn't work so well. It tears off part of the foot, and I can see that there's more meat in there that will rot if I stop. So I grab my tweezers, think "J, I must really, really love you. I sure hope this thing is dead", and go at it. Luckily, I manage to find the right angle, and as I'm grabbing and tugging and trying to gently maneuver it out of the shell (gently because I'm still not convinced it's dead), all of a sudden SCHLOOOOMP! The whole thing comes out in one moist package and as it comes out I can see scenes from Aliens flashing at me and I think I'm going to die because this snail thing is not stopping and there's no way that there can be so much snail in this tiny shell and oh my god it's going to be sooo pissed at me drop it drop it drop it!

A few minutes later, after my heartbeat has gone back to normal and I feel a little less scared silly, I poke at it to make sure it's not going to start moving, and then I examine the anatomy of a snail. It looks remarkably similar to a slug once out of it's shell, though the tip end of the gall retains the cool spiral of the shell, which reassures me that I have, indeed, killed it and pulled all of it out of there. I then boil the shell w/ some baking soda and wash it w/ some soap, and leave it to dry while I dispose of my poor science project's remains in 3 layers of paper towels and a sealed ziploc biohazard bag. Escargots are delicious, but I will let the French do what they do best, and stick to the things I don't have to kill.

And this, my friends, is why I don't eat much meat these days.