Re-thinking Slugs

Yesterday's post was disrespectful of slugs. I'm chagrined to have been so benighted and bigoted. After all, slugs have mothers too. In a comment, Mrs. KKP --formerly Miss KKH -- (a food safety specialist) reports that many people happily eat slugs, which are a great source of protein and surely taste just like chicken when fried, or blended into a stew. They will no doubt serve equally well in a fricassee or a ragout.

In my defense, I can only say that I've not enjoyed a good relationship with slugs, so far. I remember my first encounter with the slimy tribe -- as a young, innocent boy, in my father's garden on East 9th Street, where six-inch long fat gruesome creatures violated the precious daylilies with trails of goo. Slugs were unlike anything I had previously encountered and seemed to me to be either extra-terrestrial or transplanted from a horror movie. "Just pick them up and throw them into the bucket," my father said, optimistically. Squeamish, I declined.

And then there were the foot-long slugs crawling up the outsides of the windows on Mackinack Island and California's horrid banana slugs. They're all dreadful and voracious beings.

But now, in my maturity, I say, live and let live. Just don't make me eat them -- or any cephalopod, for that matter.

The most popular slug recipe, google tells us, is for slug fritters. It begins with this ominous sentence: "Ingredients: ten freshly slaughtered slugs cleaned of all outer mucous."