Li River Mud Snails

For those of you who don’t know. I love escargot. For many the thought of eating snails varies. It can range from like to love or to mild uneasiness to disgust. Although I am not really an adventurous eater, I tried escargot several years ago. I found that contrary to the widely held belief, they are not slimy and have amazing flavor. When I found them on the menu here in Yangshuo, I ordered them with only the slightest hesitation. The only reason I gave the slightest pause was not because they were snails, but because they were called mud snails. But I thought to myself “When they translate things, often they get something wrong. They can’t really mean mud snails”. Well, that turned out to be a false assumption. They had to mean mud snails because French style escargot these were not. The first one I ate had several small hard things inside that tasted like dirt. I found out later that they were actually baby snails. That never happens when prepared the French style. I guess that’s what happens when I expect to get French food in China. - Frank

Nobody is sure how this got started. Probably a couple of French master chefs were standing around one day, and they found a snail, and one of them said: 'I bet that if we called this something like "escargot," tourists would eat it.' They they had a hearty laugh, because 'escargot' is the French word for 'fat crawling bag of phlegm.' - Dave Barry