Having waged war on the brambles and won (I will wear my scars proudly. Ouch!), my gardening activities were abruptly cut short by the demise of my pruning shears. The spring went and sprang orf, no doubt to be puzzled over by alien archeologists many moons hence. I certainly couldn`t find the wretched thing   I have hurled a goodly amount of slugs into the neighbouring nettle forest. No doubt they will be back as soon as my rocket starts sprouting. Sigh.

An idle thought .....  is there any difference between slugs and snails in terms of eating them? Are slugs ever cooked?  After all snails are only slugs in designer clothing. Or are they? Why snail  porrige/porridge and not slug? Aside from the fact that it sounds even more disgusting. (Green-faced emoticon)

Hi Morticia,

All slugs once had a shell - mostly it is preserved internally (like squid with their pens and cuttlefish with their cuttlebones - although some slugs have a carapace type arrangement on their backs) and can only be seen following dissection (yuck). 

As for eating them, I can't remember reading anything about this hapening but I suppose it probably does happen in some places.  There's little morphological difference between a snail body and a slug body so it probably tastes similar (I've never eaten snails but have eaten scallops which are also molluscs, albeit from a different family).  I'll ask at the shell show (at Theydon Bois on the last Saturday of this month; be there or erm...don't)  (seriously though, it's free and not just for collectors and I will be there too, see:  http://www.britishshellclub.org.uk/ for more details)


My only snail joke (which I've probably said before):
 
Did you hear about the Oyster who went to a nightclub?
He pulled a Mussel!

Courtesy of Mr Google:


Dear Brian and Tom,  [Who they? I thought Brian was a snail.  Ed.]

In the late 1970s and early 1980s I ate slugs. As far as I know, none of the land slugs are poisonous. [Yes, but when did you write this? Ed] However, the digestive gland (which occupies about the posterior third) of at least some of the species is foul tasting, so I advise removing it before consumption. It is relatively easy to remove after cooking by making a longitudinal slit in the tail, and peeling the skin back, then either pulling off or cutting off the dark-colored digestive gland.

I recall that Arion rufus in the Pacific Northwest had a foul-tasting digestive gland. My recollection is that the digestive gland of Arion subfuscus in Michigan was not as foul tasting. I shared a banana slug (Ariolimax columbianus) with someone in Washington, so I don't know if I got the digestive gland or not, but I don't recall any foul flavor - but I did get the crunchy shell. I have also had Deroceras spp and Limax maximus, and don't recall any foul flavor.

It is a VERY good idea to cook land mollusks before eating them, as they are good vectors for human parasites. Cooking them will kill the parasites. The people on reality TV shows who eat live slugs are taking chances with their own health.

Slugs tend to have more slime than snails (probably defensive, since slugs can't hide in a shell). An easy way to remove the slime before cooking is to put the live slugs into 50% vinegar 50% water. The solution is fatal to the slugs in a few minutes, and in the process, they exude most of their slime. Also, when you are boiling them, change the water after a minute or two to remove further slime. One recipe advocates adding a bay leaf to the cooking water to improve the smell.

After they are cooked (and the digestive gland removed, if necessary), you can use the slugs as you would clams (e.g., slug chowder); be creative.

While I am mostly a vegetarian, I advocate eating of pest slugs. Eating slugs from the garden is biological control, with humans being the predator! Slugs are like escargots with the shell already removed! By eating slugs, we can turn pests into something desirable.

Tim Pearce
Asst Curator and Head, section of Mollusks
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213


Mollusk with a 'k' in the US. The things you learn.

Favourite sentence of the week: "I shared a banana slug (Ariolimax columbianus) with someone in Washington"

The odd thing is it's the 'someone in Washington' rather than the slug that I want to know more about. And why did he/she refuse to divulge whether or not they had removed the digestive gland or which end they were offering Mr Pearce? Is that a characteristically Washington thing to do?

I've eaten snails on a number of occasions, but, come to think about it, they're so suspiciously easy to pull out of their shells with those fiendish tools the French have invented

that you might almost wonder whether the shells and snails had actually met before being prepared for consumption - indeed, whether the little grey thing in the shell is a snail at all, as opposed to a gastrectomised slug.

"By eating slugs, we can turn pests into something desirable."

So now we know the answer to bindweed, ant invasions, the dog next door and Norman Lebrecht.

I already posted a reply which got lost when the forum stuck 

Here's a summary:

Re eating slugs, whatever presses your buttons, I suppose!

There's a website for weird foodstuffs, not sure of the url.

There was an article in the Mollusc World magazine (a Conchological society publication) about eating slugs to kill human tapeworms.  Apparently they fight in your digestive tract and finally you throw them both up.  No thanks!

I don't believe it! Some snail and slug adverts have now appeared. Hurrah (No 3)! 

Mind you they took their time arriving

De spring am sprung, de flow's is ris, I wonder where de birdies is? 



Sorry about the scatological content. Nearest thing I could find.

Ahem! and puppy-dogs tails? 

A cheery morning "Ho!" to Soundwave and co.

Your pic reminds me of something a friend sent me: how to clean the toilet and bath the cat at the same time. In the interests of animal welfare (and the hope of keeping the few friends I have) I will not repeat it here.