Giant African Snails

I had a friend who kept being given pets for birthday presents. There were goldfish who lived in a tank that became algae infested and slowly turned silver. And before that was the giant african snail. He was rather cute (I say he but really he was a bit of both), as long as he hadn't crawled on your newspaper or the table - BIG slime trail. He was also fond of nibbling her bills - she couldn't understand why her paperwork ended up with these weird holes in them for ages. She let him wander in the garden one day and he made a break for it and was never found. I like to think he met some up-for-it commonal garden snail and created a mutant Stoke Newington snail strain, but I fear the cold did for him.

Today in Peckham the butcher was selling two big baskets full of them. Not as cute as said cute pet, they had a darker foot but were equally up for it trying to get away. Its just a bit hard for them dragging that huge shell over the edge. Apparently they get made into a very strongly flavoured stew. I was half glad when they said stew - I was having horrible images of trying to get the cooked snail out of its shell with the picker thing that they give you when you're eating escargot. And it would be a bit of a chewy mouthful. Ugh.