I Tried Escargot in Paris and It Was Gross

Paris had been working on me all day.

By evening, I’d walked along the Seine, bought a book I couldn’t read from a riverside stall, and paid seven euros for a coffee approximately the size of a thimble. (Why don't they serve iced coffee in Paris in the summer!) I was feeling unusually sophisticated. Reckless, even.

That’s how I ended up ordering escargot at Bouillon Chartier. (Google it, it's very nice!)

The restaurant was hidden beyond a little passageway near the Grands Boulevards. Inside, it looked exactly how I’d hoped an old Parisian restaurant would look: high ceilings, glowing globe lights, dark wood, brass luggage racks, and waiters moving at high speeds while balancing trays of food.

The dining room buzzed with conversation and clattering plates. I was seated at a tiny table beside a French couple who seemed to be arguing so eloquently that it could have been a podcast about 19th-century French poetry.

Then, the waiter arrived. By the way, when you tell people that you went to Paris, one of the first things they ask is, "did you try the snails?" Well, this was my moment to impress.

“Six escargots,” I’d said, attempting a French accent so poor that it may have sounded Mexican. (Yes, "six" is "six" in French, but it is pronounced, "cease.")

I told myself I was being adventurous. People had eaten snails for centuries. They were a French delicacy. Julia Child probably loved them. Besides, I’d read that escargot mostly tasted like garlic butter.

This turned out to be true in the same way that a wet sock dipped in garlic butter would also mostly taste like garlic butter. (By the way, I'm trying to lose weight, and escargot aren't exactly on the list of the most-tracked foods on the WW app!)

Anyway, the plate arrived with six shells nestled into round indentations, each one gleaming beneath a bubbling green mixture of butter, parsley, and garlic. They smelled fantastic. Honestly, if escargot tasted half as good as it smelled, I was about to become unbearably cultured.

The waiter gave me a small fork and a pair of metal tongs. I picked up the first shell, squeezed too hard, and launched it across my plate. Butter splattered onto the tablecloth. Those little buggers are slippery!

The French couple paused their argument. I pretended nothing had happened.

On my second attempt, I managed to extract the snail. It emerged slowly, dark and glossy, with the stubborn elasticity of something being pulled from a shower drain. Ew!

There are moments in life when your brain offers clear instructions. Mine said, “Kevin, you do not have to eat that. Please go to the nearest Chipotle and order something safe and predictable.”

But the French couple was watching now. The stakes were high, and it was too late to reconsider, so I ate it.

The garlic butter was rich and salty. The parsley tasted fresh. (Wait, why am I eating the parsley? Why do farmers still grow parsley on land that could be used for something edible, like Honeycrisp apples?)

For one hopeful second, everything was fine. Then I chewed. It was the texture that got me.

The snail was simultaneously rubbery and soft, like a mushroom with a hidden resistance band inside it. It didn’t taste rotten or especially fishy. It was worse than that, it tasted earthy. Really earthy. Like something that had spent its entire life crawling through a damp garden and had retained detailed memories of the experience. Oh, maybe because it had!

I swallowed with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb.

“Bon?” the waiter asked as he rushed past.

“Très bon,” I lied, using one of the 12 French phrases that I knew.

I ate two more because I’m apparently more afraid of wasting food than betraying my own tongue. Then I surrendered and used the remaining bread to soak up the garlic butter, carefully navigating around the surviving snails.

Dessert was chocolate mousse, which required no special equipment and contained nothing recently found beneath a flowerpot.

I left Bouillon Chartier full, humbled, and smelling faintly of garlic. Paris was still beautiful. The restaurant was wonderful. The escargot was gross.

At least now I could say I’d tried it, which, I’ve decided, is the best thing about eating snails!