By Amy Machnak, Sunset recipe editor

By Amy Machnak, Sunset food writer

By Amy Machnak, Sunset recipe editor

If there was ever a moment of ill-preparedness, this was it. 

Johanna Silver, test garden coordinator-extraordinaire, told me that I needed to cook the escargots TODAY, because they were on the verge of kicking the snail bucket, so to speak. 

The timing couldn’t have been worse. I was up to my elbows in recipe testing for the magazine and I couldn’t possibly cook them. I hadn’t had time to research the books. I didn’t even know if we had parsley. 

But I had no choice. We had been torturing and fattening these little guys for days now, and it was only respectful that we follow through with the project as intended. The alternative would be wasteful, not to mention downright cruel. 

I did the quick Internet search and found a few recipes that, as I had hoped, called for butter, garlic, and parsley. But they mentioned packing the shells and then putting the snails back into them. Huh? How was I suppose to get them out, let alone back in? Why didn’t it mention how long to cook them? 

Never mind, I thought to myself. It can’t be rocket science. I’m an accomplished cook, and I just don’t have any other options.

I melted about 4 tbsp. of unsalted butter in a large skillet and then tossed in our snails and a minced garlic clove. I cooked them for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, then finished with chopped fresh parsley and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Voilà.

We called in the official tasters (whoever was willing and interested).

Due to our professionalism and total respect for our food editor, Margo True, we waited for her to have the first taste. (Okay, so we were all too scared to take the first bite and made her do it, but hey, what do you expect? We may be adventurous, but we’re not completely nuts, as evidenced by Elizabeth’s doubtful expression.) Margo popped the end of her toothpick into her mouth, gave a few chews and then proclaimed with a wrinkled nose: “It’s kinda...mucusy." 

EEEWWWW! I decided that these were not an item that should be served medium rare. Back into the pan they went for a thorough cooking over high heat. About 10 minutes later, now with the butter and herbs both very brown, we gave it another go. 

“Oh, that’s much better,” said Ms. True. Then Elizabeth and Johanna had a taste. Not bad. Kind of chewy, but not tough. Overall, not disgusting and definitely resembling the stuff you get for $24 at a fancy French place in the city. My taste was fine, but I knew I could do much better than this on the execution.

Next: cooking escargot part deux. Just as soon as I locate our copy of Escoffier.

By Amy Machnak, Sunset recipe editor

I feel confident that I can cook anything. And when given the opportunity to cook something new or unusal, the result falls somewhere between fair and outstanding.

An elk my Dad shot and then butchered in the garage? Check.

Morning glory leaves from a street market in Vietnam? check, check.

Wedding cake for 500 people that looks like it’s destined for the Mad Hatter’s tea party? No problem.

But when our resident test garden gal, Johanna Silver, asked me to cook a few snails that she pulled out of our garden, I became a little...well, intimidated.

I’ve eaten escargot plenty of times. After foie gras and sweet breads, it’s generally a sure thing order for me when I see it on menu. But I’ve never actually cooked it. At least not the fresh ones, still alive and sitting in a tray in our kitchen, living on a cornmeal diet to fatten them up.

Here’s my first dilema: What exactly is a snail? Is it like abalone (which I just learned is a type of sea snail), which cooks very quickly? Or is it more like octopus, which is better cooked longer, to soften the proteins?

I know that I want to cook our snails with the traditional butter, garlic, parsley, etc. and serve them with a nice crusty French baguette. But should I cook them slow and long? Hot and fast? Should they be baked? broiled? sautéed?

I think research in one of those old, dusty, classical French cookbooks on our shelves is called for.

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

I checked on the snails today. They're getting FAT! One in particular looks like it's about to bust out of its shell:

They have until tomorrow to gorge themselves on cornmeal. That's when Amy fries them up!

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator   

I crush snails daily in the test garden, but this whole escargot thing is really messing me up. It's one thing to think of them as garden pests and to kill them right away, but a whole other thing to raise them for food. I have much different standards.

I checked on the little guys over the weekend and felt so bad that we were starving them. They had clearly slowed down, and I felt like I was engaged in bizarre form of snail torture. I wanted the little buggers to be ok!  So I cleaned them up and added a few teaspoons of cornmeal.

So far there have been two casualties, but the rest of the gang is still hanging in there.

At this point their systems are purged and they're just being fattened up on the cornmeal. They are excreting nothing but white ribbons of cornmeal:

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

I found a bunch of snails huddled together in the garden and scooped them up in my hand before the sole of my boot could get to them.

Let the fun begin! I'm following Sunset's instructions from 1988, and the first step is to purge them for at least 4 days. This clears their systems from any toxins that might be poisonous for human consumption.

Here I am, such a proud mother, checking them out in their new setup, complete with watering dish:

Their home will need to be cleaned every other day (but they'll survive the weekend, don't you think?) and then they can be fattened up by adding a few teaspoons of cornmeal.

Clockwise from top left: Snaily, Shelly, Shelli, Chelle, Mishell, Rachelle, and Shelby
(Hey - they named the chickens and, though they might be in denial,
we will eventually eat them too.)


Last step: covered in several layers of cheesecloth and secured tightly with a rubber band.

My favorite part of the Sunset article: "Check daily and discard any dead snails. Scratch the snail's foot to check: if it doesn't twitch, the snail is dead." I never thought of their underside as a foot. I like it!

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

Things are crazy in the test garden as we prepare for Celebration Weekend, but I wanted to take a quick minute to keep you posted on my ever growing interest in Team Escargot. Turns out Sunset wrote the book (er, article) on homemade escargot back in May of 1988. Check it out:

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

I'm back from the James Beard weekend extravaganza in NYC and am completely invigorated and inspired. We noshed on an incredible array of goodies after the Monday night awards, and it got me thinking about how to push the envelope on what we produce in the test garden.

Esquire took on this question last summer and it seems entirely possible to turn regular garden snails into fancy escargot so long as you purge them for several weeks to get whatever nastiness they've eaten out of their systems.

It seems like something fun to try, especially considering that they usually end up looking like this:

Yes, I know I can feed them to the chickens. Sometimes the sole of my boot just gets the best of me.