It’s summertime in Portugal, and as the tourists flood the downtown, the Portuguese retreat to their local restaurants and bars to enjoy the gastronomic tradition of the season: snails! Yes, that’s right, Caracois are to the Portuguese as hot dogs and hamburgers are to the Americans this season, and they’re both cheap eats. From what most Americans know about snails in general, we know from the French, and still don’t quite understand why they would regard such things as a delicacy! Well, it may not be a delicacy here, but they’re definitely something the Portuguese like to eat a lot of, having anxiously awaited the moment in mid-June when they see the signs go up outside the restaurants saying “Há Caracois” (there are Caracois).

But I never thought I’d see people get so excited over something my culture won’t even get near. When I walk into a local bar or cafe here, between the hours of 5 and 7pm, the whole place is packed with everyone chowing down on heaping plates of Caracois. It may look like an enormous amount but these Portuguese snails are much smaller than their known French cousins. So there’s a lot of lip-smacking and finger-licking, as the Caracois are cooked in a very flavorful broth and its custom to just suck those little guys right out of their shells! They do give you toothpicks if you’re not courageous enough, so you can pull them out instead (like I did).

The tradition of eating Caracois in the summer originated in the southerly Portuguese region of Alentejo, with influence from the Andalucia region in southern Spain. Both of these regions get extremely hot in the summer but also have the humidity that promotes snail …