Jun 08 2011
Sheep brains and snail soup
While most of the food here is awesome… there are a few exceptions.
Notably sheep brain and snail soup.
First (and last) bite of brain
Sheep brain is delicacy often reserved at restaurants for friends of the owners. Marc and his friends wanted to try it, so they found a grill that would serve it to them. It was gelatinous, Marc explained. And though they did manage to eat it all (it would have been very rude not to) none of them are interested in more! Now I tease them that they are zombies.
Between 5-6 pm people here normally eat a significant snack. Dinner is then served around 8:30 or 9 pm. One favorite snack is snail soup. Right around 5, almost every street corner has someone selling snail soup. They fill cups and have bent safety pins laying out for people to dig the snails out of the shells. Both the cups and the pins go directly from one customer to the next.
When I first heard about snail soup, I thought I would be willing to try. I’ve had escargot. Brains aside, I’ll try most things once. But the smell!!! Oh wow. I was almost grateful for whatever has been making me sick to my stomach the last couple of days. It gave me an excuse not to eat when my friends tried to buy me a cup of snail soup yesterday. I don’t think I am off the hook though, they made sure I knew that the offer stood for a day I was feeling better.