the rain and Ramsay has got me thinking- backyard snails

the image above is what i would like to be doing (and sometimes do) every weekday from 3-4PM: watching my new favorite show- Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. every so often, i can also watch Gordon's other show- The F-Word. now dont confuse both of these shows with his other popular show-that is more of a take on Top Chef (LOVE) with the literal berating of contestants.

but i digress, i am sure to talk of Ramsay and Kitchen Nightmares later, but what i wanted to talk about was a recent episode of The F-Word that i saw where Gordon talked about preparing and cooking garden snails.
that's right- Gordon, who loves snails, visited a British snail farm to learn about eating local snails that are usually shipped from France...when asking if it was the same to cook garden snails, he was told that it was the same thing. so what did he do?? he challenged his kids to pick snails from the garden and prepared them.

i guess once you find the snails, there is a series of steps that you need to take in order to extract the impurities...so don't just pick them up and up them in a pan! i would post the video of Gordon, but i can't find it.
according to the blog eating garden snails, preparing snails for consumption involves the following:

• washing them
  
• place them in a container and making sure they cannot get out!-but make sure they can breathe.
  
• let them sit in the container for a day or 2 (to wash out toxins)
  
• wash snails and container
  
• feed them human veggies for a day or 2 (Gordon says carrots-guess it helps you see when the poop is with carrots)
• wash again and put in the fridge until they stop moving.
• cook.
  

i am still trying to find the video clip of how to prepare the snails. this blog devoted to Ramsay recipes does a nice recap of the episode.
i think i am going to try this next time it rains...