Eating Snails, or Maybe Frogs

Starting out my kids in school at such a young age, I know what it is like to have a small bribe to get them out of the car and in the door of the school in the morning. I usually promise these particular chocolate eggs with a surprise inside called Kinder Eggs. They sell them everywhere here in Italy so I can always pick some up while the kids are in school, and have the treats waiting for them when they get home. It might not win me any parenting awards, but it helps. So one morning, taking my kids to school, I wasn't surprised to hear another mom coercing her son into school with the promise of something enticing when he got out of school. I was just mildly shocked when I understood that it was snails for dinner. Lumaca, snail, I'm sure I understood correctly.

 Now, the Italians do have a taste for some things that you would rarely find on an American menu and since we moved to this southern region of Italy, I have often seen older folks wearing tall rubber boots, out for a Sunday drive, scouring the countryside with plastic grocery bags in hand. I asked my husband what he thought it could be and we concluded it was either wild herbs, or snails. As time went by, I concluded snails were the object in question because I noticed the cars parked roadside mostly on days when it had just rained. I shouldn't be surprised that they feed their kids the same things they are accustomed to eating.

Luckily, my kids usually just come home from school with snails in their pockets, not in their lunch bags.

The other day I was on the phone with my mom and she had just posted a photo to Flickr that she had taken of a small peeper frog on my dad's Mini Cooper, and my son walked in as I told her I thought it was a fantastic picture, that I loved the little frog. My son continued to play on the floor with some airplanes and my mom continued on in small talk, describing the steak dinner she had fixed for my dad the night before. "That sounds SO delicious!" I replied emphatically, because a good steak, like one from Oklahoma, is hard to find here. My son, not looking up from what he was doing, asked, "The frog?" He thought his Gram was serving delicious frog for dinner. But of course, why would eating frog be strange to him. We eat octopus and other creepy sea creatures, why not frog, too? I can't get the kid to eat his veggies, but he'll suck the heads of scampi.

As a loyal Oklahoman, I should probably not be disclosing this next piece of information, but some Italians, not all, eat horse. It is always sold in the supermarket. In fact, they even make jarred horse baby food, sold right along next to the jarred turkey, chicken, or beef. Italian babies also have the option of eating rabbit, lamb, and at least 4 varieties of fish-- all served in a baby food jar, ready to eat. Culturally, my children are being raised, and fed, totally Italian. I grew up riding horses, my kids grow up eating them.

My mom eats snails in the Veneto