The children made me do it. I use that excuse a lot, but usually it relates to my own children.
We walked into the little bar on a cliff on the coast near Sintra, Portugal, looking forward to dinner after a big day of custard tart eating in Lisbon. The family of four at the next table were tucking into a couple of very large bowls of teeny, tiny snails. Steven wanted to try them. I wasn’t so sure, but then if the six and eight year olds at the next table could demolish that many of the little slime-bags and suck the shells dry, I wasn’t going to be shown up as some kind of English Tourist Wuss.We ordered a half-serve.
The little feelers were still visible as we dragged them from their homes with toothpicks.
Steven described them as hot, soft pistachio nuts. More-ish. Can’t stop at one. He ate sixty-seven.
They reminded me of when I was a kid, and I hate to admit it, but I picked my nose and ate the result. Well, all the other kids did it…. didn’t they?????
I ate forty-eight snails.
There were still about a hundred left on the plate.
