A Home Cooked Meal, Away from Home

A Children’s Cargolade

Giggling, the young schoolboy dangles a piece of cargolade before me. "Vous mangez," he commands, sliding the snail out from its shell with ease using a small fork, reminiscent of Poseidon’s trident. As I open my mouth he quickly drops the grilled gastropod onto my tongue and collapses into a fit of laughter with his French schoolmates. "Je adore le cargolade," he tells me, snatching a handful of spiraled shells, their occupants sticky with salt and pepper, from the plate of 40 before me.

Visiting an escargot farm in Estoher, France is a treat in of itself, but to be there while a group of children tour the farm and learn to prepare a cargolade provides a new perspective on a French culinary tradition. Cargolade, a traditional Catalan way of cooking snails in their shells, over charcoal is popular in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France.

Gathered around a long wooden table under the warm summer sun the children’s laughter rises and falls like notes in a musical symphony. They crowd around netted bags overflowing with fresh live snails, dipping their slimy bottoms into a simple spice mix before lining them up on racks for the grill.

While the snails sizzle and pop over the charcoal, occasionally jumping to the beat of their own song the children are spreading generous amounts of creamy aoli over thick slices of warm, crusty baguette.

Stéphane, who runs La Ferme aux Escargot with his wife Nathalie, brings out what looks to be a watering can crossed with a wine decanter full of sweet strawberry flavored water to delighted cheers from around the table. A wine pitcher typical of Catalonia, the porron is used to share a drink among friends without anyone needing a glass. Standing over the children, Stéphane helps each one hold the porron in front of them while they lean back, aiming the stream or liquid into their eagerly awaiting mouths.

Armed with tiny silver forks we gather around platters of hot escargot, right off the grill. A quiet blonde girl wearing a pink baseball cap sits across from me struggling to pull her snail from its shell. Finally she breaks the slippery meat free and takes a tentative lick before placing the snail in her mouth. Her face quickly distorts in disgust, eyes squeezing shut as she forces herself to swallow.

Next to me, my new friend tosses an empty shell aside and reaches for another. Between chews he looks over at Stéphane and his wife Nathalie. “C’est bonne!” he says, forming the sign for OK with his fingers.