Skip to main content

Snails - Caracoles

Here's my newest experience. I stopped at Nery's house on Fri PM & Paco came home from work (construction near the marina) with a bag of snails. Yes, with just a face mask, he had been diving for snails during his lunch break, I guess & probably had around 100 in this bag. So, we went to Panchita's house to cook them because they didn't have a pot big enough. The only "seafood" I cook is fish, so this was a learning thing for me. So, we boiled them in shell until cooked, took out of the water & pulled off the cap & pulled out the meat & all the rest of the insides. Only 1/2 of what's in the shell is actually edible. And what started as a large bag I could hardly lift became a bowl, 2 pounds, maybe, of actual meat. (Shells are saved for a craft project). My next lesson was how to eat these Mexican mariscos. Well, duh – with chopped tomato, onion, garlic, chile, lime & cilantro, of course. Add clamato & serve like a cold soup with crackers or crisp tostadas & you have Ceviche de Caracol.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Roadside Assistance

The clanking of metal bouncing over pavement caused me to brake, move from left to right & make a sudden stop on the shoulder of the newly widened Mexican highway.   As I prepared to get out of the car to check on the cause of the noise, one meter didn’t feel like a particularly safe space between me & the cars whizzing by.   But then continuing on wasn’t really an option either.   So, I said a quick prayer, took a deep breath & hopped out.   Well, that distressing noise was the result of the decorative bar across the bottom of the car coming loose at the back end, driver’s side, traffic side.   Every time I bent over to check how I was going to fix it, another car or semi caused me to question the sanity of what I was doing.   My prayer was short & to the point, not panicked but with a concern that comes when one is alone on a Mexican highway with no obvious solution to the problem.   “Please send someone to help me.   And please ...

Chocolate

I found Rice Krispies! What does that have to do with chocolate, you may ask? Well, last time I lived in Mexico, I had to make Rice Krispies Squares with pink & white marshmallows & Choco Krispies (yes, chocolate). Now I have a couple recipes with chocolate chips - I’ve searched high & low around here for chocolate chips, but have only found them in Walmart in Hermosillo. So, in my search for chocolate chips or a reasonable substitute, I’ve discovered there’s no lack of chocolate, I just can’t limit my search to the usual sources. I’ve seen a few chocolate bars at the stores – few enough that it should be easy to choose. Peanuts & cajeta seem to be popular fillings. The store up the street keeps them in the cooler – I can imagine they would melt on the shelf most of the year in these little unair-conditioned stores. I even found a few imports like Peanut Butter Cups, Fererro Roche & Oreos. There’s Powdered Cocoa, Chokis (cookies), & the occasional cake mix and y...

A New Water Feature

  I had just moved into a different house.      It was a house with a few needed repairs which the landlords were less concerned about as soon as I moved in.      But… it was home.   This fixer-upper did have new paint, a new toilet & … new sounds.      One morning, I suddenly awoke thinking “Ahhh?   That’s not rain I’ve been listening to.”      Sure enough, the “rain” was pouring off my roof.   Having experienced this in other houses, I knew it was the tinaco (water tank) on the roof overflowing.      So, I got dressed & went out to turn off the water at the street.      I wandered the yard, got sandy slippers & drew blood hitting my head on a tree branch (no glasses & still dark) only to find that this house didn’t have a street level meter & shut off tap.      Huh… Now what?      Not only was it wasting water but the water was...