It is often said that the French will eat almost anything. The other day at a dinner party, my neighbour at the table told me that they eat ragondin. Coypu. Giant rats. Apparently nicely roasted, they’re not too much different from rabbit, itself not that much different from chicken.
Since they eat frogs’ legs, I’m surprised they don’t eat frogspawn, despite the environmental issues. And hang on, if they eat snails, why not worms?
By the way, do you know how many teeth a snail has? Up to 20,000 and counting... and they are also hermaphrodite, cunning little fellows!
In Spain, at a restaurant in Barcelona – Los Caracoles which means ‘snails’, near Las Ramblas – at the right time of year, you can eat baby elvers. I have as yet to see them on a French menu.
And if we eat eels, pourquoi pas les serpents? People eat seaweed, so when will we get round to plankton?
Someone has to be first. Any volunteers? One wonders who it was who discovered that you could eat globe artichokes. Did they see a donkey eating thistles and think ‘let’s give it a whirl’?
Mazuera.Photography / Shutterstock
How to prepare globe artichokes
Cut off the stalk, cover the artichokes in boiling water, cook for about 30 minutes depending on size. Every now and again top up the water to keep them covered and pull off a leaf to test when they’re ready.
Drain in a colander and leave to cool off a little. Eat hot or cold, dipping each leaf in vinaigrette and sucking the white inner part between your teeth. Such fun.
And it gets better. Once all the bigger outer leaves are finished, you’re left with the heart at the base. This is covered with white thistly hairs that need to be removed and chucked away.
Experts do it by squeezing all-round the joint between the hairs and the heart, and simply lifting the hairy section off. Dunk bits of the heart in vinaigrette and raise your glass in honour of whoever first discovered that we humans can actually eat these giant thistles.
