Escargogurt

the adult kids snack

Hello, clowns!

For today’s edition of Food is Stupid, I thought I’d delve back into the finer things in life. After all, we need a little bit of luxury to distract us from the existential dread within our souls as we march on towards oblivion. Hilarious!

Plus, since the James Beard Awards were hosted earlier this week here in Chicago, feeling fancy has been a subject that’s been weighing heavily upon my mind. That is because there is no doubt that the celebrity chefs that descended upon Chicago for a few days swarmed only the fanciest of restaurants, popping champagne, boofing powdered foie gras, while smearing their faces with bone marrow, gold leaf, and sustainably stolen hummingbird tears.

The truth is, many of us cannot participate in such culinary orgies, mainly because we are too busy working just to scrape by. The only time we can treat ourselves to such joy is in the form of quick treats, typically eaten in the car while crying, far from the critical beady-eyed stuffed animal overlords who judge your every move.

So I took it upon myself to create an opulent treat, one that could be eaten conveniently on the go, yet still give you the sense that you’re peers with the likes of Bobby Flay, Gordon Ramsay, or the magnificent Paula Deen.

I imagined what sort of lavish dinner out I’d have with a mass of celebrity chefs, and the first thing I thought of was French food. After all, French food just screams fancy. And when I think of famous French dishes, one of the very first I consider is escargot. But just how could I turn escargot into a portable luxurious working-class treat?

I looked to one of my favorite culinary inspirations: children’s snacks.

One particularly handy aspect about kid’s snacks is that most of them are designed to be portable.

One kid’s pouched, easy to clutch snack that I think about often is Go-Gurt. I’m obsessed with this shit. Almost all of you must be familiar with this product, but in the off chance that you aren’t, Go-Gurt is just yogurt packaged in a skinny plastic popsicle pouch, meant for kids to eat while running around in circles. It’s yogurt! It’s on the go! It’s Go-Gurt! Plus, as a bonus, that name is disgusting!

That’s why I thought that by using the magic of modern packaging, plus my innate ability to, uh, innovate food in the kitchen, I could create a new fascinating hybrid product between escargot and Go-Gurt. I would call it Escargogurt™.

I purchased all the ingredients I needed to make a proper escargot at home, including snails and its traditional accompanying butter, yogurt, and just the right type of packaging I’d need for my initial prototype of Escargogurt.

What’s delightful about buying canned escargot is that some kits come with empty snail shells for you to plate with.

This way, you can reconstruct what this now dead creature would have have looked like when it was alive. Then when you extract the snail’s butter-drenched body from within its shell sarcophagus later, you can wiggle it around at your dining companion and chase them around the room with it. It’s sort of like Weekend at Bernie’s: Dinner Party Edition.

The problem is, a snail shell is not the ideal vehicle for conveniently sucking out yogurt. (Let the record state that I paused here after typing the words “vehicle for conveniently sucking out yogurt” and stared at the floor for a little while.) Although the idea of someone fishing around for loose yogurt-filled snail shells in their purse is pretty promising.

That is why Davida suggested I buy these disposable popsicle bags she found on Amazon.

They were a perfect way to simulate the form factor of a Go-Gurt packet at home, plus, as a bonus, the package comes complete with a collapsible funnel.

I started with the escargot butter, which is surprisingly easy to make.

I used a recipe from Epicurious for reference, but basically it’s just a garlic, shallot, and parsley butter with a little bit of white wine. I chopped up the main ingredients, posed everything just-so for this photo, and praised myself for transforming into an expert French chef.

I mixed the garlic, shallots, and parsley into a stick of softened butter, along with a sprinkle of black pepper and salt.

I’m not sure why I appear to be angrily pointing at the bowl in this photo. It must have said something rude to me. I do not tolerate this kind of behavior in my kitchen! We operate on the brigade system, and you will not talk back to chef Dannis Ree, the greatest French chef in all of history! I will make you tourné a whole truck’s worth of potatoes! I don’t know what that means!

The final step was to stir a tablespoon of wine into the mixture.

I used the finest vintage of Sutter Home chardonnay, the kind that comes in a single-serve cardboard carton that people sneak into an outdoor music venue. I’ll try and smuggle some of it into the next BoDeans concert Davida and I go to at the county fair.

I could not for the life of me remember if I’ve ever had Go-Gurt, so when I went ingredient shopping, I looked to see what types of flavors existed.

Apparently children despise actual fruit, because the Go-Gurt flavors we found were things like cotton candy and something called “Strawberry Splash.”

That’s why when Davida found this weird watermelon-flavored Chobani Greek yogurt on the shelf, it sang to me. Chobani isn’t a kid’s brand, it’s touted as healthy adult food. Upon closer inspection, I found out that there’s actual watermelon puree in the ingredients list, no fake Jolly Rancher flavoring here. Interesting. The maiden flavor of Escargogurt would officially be watermelon-snail.

Also, unrelated, Chobani sounds like some kind of insult you fling at somebody when you’re pissed.

“Don’t get paint on my dog, you worthless sack of Chobani!”

I have a confession. I got paint on someone’s dog once. The painful truth is, I’m the real Chobani.

I put some of the prepared escargot butter into my immersion blender’s mini food processor attachment, along with the entire container of the watermelon-flavored Chobani.

The watermelon Chobani is some horseshit, by the way. It barely tastes like anything other than slightly sweetened yogurt. Whoever decided that was a good idea for a flavor is a total Chobani.

Apparently I wasn’t paying very close attention when I ordered the snails off of Amazon.

I thought I’d bought one can, but apparently I missed the fact that it was actually a two-pack. Each can weighs one pound, 12.2 ounces. What the fuck am I going to do with that many snails?

Each can comes jammed with snail carcasses, too.

I cautiously ate a few of them straight from the can, and to be honest, snails don’t really have a ton of flavor. They’re sort of like softer clams, and are more menacing to look at.

Despite their tame flavor, I’m not sure putting a bunch of snails into a food processor with a garlic-parsley butter and watermelon-flavored Greek yogurt is their ideal culinary use.

But I’m chasing after the feeling of being pampered, which in this case, is very important.

I began running the hand blender and watched as the snails went from big curly creatures to little tiny obliterated bits.

I was aiming for a smooth consistency, so I kept running the food processor for a long time.

The lightly pinkish yogurt eventually transformed into a cookies and cream color.

Or should I say…snails and cream?

It was time to fill up a bag using the collapsible funnel that came in the popsicle kit.

Too bad this was the worst fucking funnel I’ve ever seen. I appreciated its compact form factor, but its nozzle was so short it kept popping out of the bag while I was trying to funnel Escargogurt into it. Also, because the funnel tip was so stubby, the Escargogurt kept smearing above the zip lock, which became traumatic when I had to seal it shut. What I’m saying is that this funnel ruined my life. Five stars!

The Escargogurt had warmed up a fair amount when I blended it together, so once I bagged it, I had to let it refrigerate and set up.

When I took it out a few hours later, I could tell it was good to go, because it was standing up straight, lookin’ all excited to see me.

It was finally time to give this Escargogurt a try.

First off, these disposable popsicle bags are terrible. It didn’t occur to me just how horrible of an experience it’d be to try and eat something with a pudding consistency through the top of a zip lock bag. I now hate these things forever.

The Escargogurt itself may actually be one of the most confusing things I think I’ve ever eaten. The cookies and cream color had really gotten to me, because my pea brain somehow went into this thing thinking I’d be getting a taste of pulverized Oreos in a milky custard.

What I actually got was nearly indescribable, a tangy, lightly sweetened mousse that had a muddy flavor to it (which I’m guessing was due to the snails), with the background flavor of garlic. If there was any sort of watermelon flavor, it was now absolutely obliterated, and on top of it, the whole result was somehow also bitter.

But what really threw me off was another detail about its texture that I wasn’t expecting—it was gritty. The few snails I’d eaten straight from the can weren’t sandy, so I’m guessing the little bits of fine grit were actually tiny flecks of parsley, which I’ve noticed can kind of be tough sometimes.

Did it taste like escargot? Yes. Did it taste like yogurt? Also, yes. Plus, there was the added bonus of whatever that grit was in my mouth. I may not be a savvy businessman, but I have a sneaking suspicion that nobody would buy this. My dreams of being friends with celebrity chefs at the James Beard Awards parties as a rich sycophantic dilettante have come crashing down to the ground.

Thankfully, there’s already one perfect portable snack out there, one I can rely on to make me feel better in my darkest hours while I toil away at my full time job and two Substack newsletters.

Go-Gurt is the salve that will heal all wounds.

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Man, I went really long today, so I’ll leave you here. As always, I love you all, and see some of you in your inboxes next week.