Drinking Snails

Drinking Snails

　　Drinking snails, as the name implies, are snails meant to be sucked and eaten. Guilin drinking snails are a highly distinctive local snack, sold daily at night markets. When eating them, you pry open the top of the shell, purse your lips, and suck the snail forcefully into your mouth. After finishing the snails, you drink the soup, which is spicy and savory—perfect for whetting the appetite.

　　Guilin drinking snails are also a reflection of the city’s unique charm. When you step into the night markets of Guilin, the numerous drinking snail stalls are truly dazzling, making it hard to decide which one to try. Their density is something rarely seen in other cities. Guilin drinking snails are delicious, with tender, crisp, and soft meat.

　　The snails used to make drinking snails are a type of mollusk encased in a hard, spiral-shelled exterior. There are stone snails, which mainly grow near ditches and rivers. These snails are small but have thick meat. There’s also the pond snail, which has a short, round body, a pointed tail, and firm, larger meat. It mostly lives in rice paddies and ponds. Snail meat is cool in nature, sweet in taste, and rich in protein, vitamin C, calcium, and other minerals. It can clear heat, improve vision, and promote saliva production. Eating a bowl of drinking snails at the onset of a cold can definitely refresh you and help restore your health.

　　Cooking drinking snails in Guilin is quite particular. The snails you buy must be soaked in clean water for several days, with the water changed daily, to allow the snails to expel the mud and waste from their bodies. Then, use a brush to clean off any debris on the shells and knock off the tips of the shells to make them easier to suck. Add oil, salt, ginger, Sanhua wine, and chili peppers, then stir-fry over high heat. Next, add perilla leaves and pork bones, pour in water, and simmer. This creates the fragrant, spicy, and savory drinking snails. If you add mashed garlic and chopped scallions before eating, the flavor becomes even more delicious.

　　Eating drinking snails in Guilin emphasizes “drinking” them. You pinch the snail tightly between your fingers, bring your mouth close to the opening, and suck forcefully, producing a “hissing” sound that’s quite delightful. When you suck hard, you draw out both the meat and the soup. Chewing while sipping makes it even more enjoyable than delicacies from mountains and seas. When the snail meat can’t be sucked out, you can use a small bamboo skewer to help lift it out. The snail soup is the essence of cooking drinking snails. Using it to make snail noodle soup results in a dish so spicy and savory that it makes your forehead sweat and your face glow—it’s incredibly satisfying.