France is best known for its frogs and snails. But the industrialisation and development of mass agriculture means you’d be lucky to find a French frog or snail in the shops nowadays. You’ll be eating the common or garden eastern European varieties.
Or you could visit Vietnam. Pretty much everywhere has live frogs in the market either tied together or in a net. And snails roam fairly free too.
I’m waiting for the night train to Hanoi in Lao Cai, nestled on the Chinese border. I don’t to give you the name of the café facing the train terminal because, again, it doesn’t really matter where you eat. All places are very much the same.
The frog came sliced thin slices with a cucumber and tomato salad, flavoured with lemon grass and local herbs.
It was fresh, delicate and delicious.
Fast forward a fortnight and I’m with a plate of snails in Saigon. I’m used to sitting down with the French variety, stuffed with garlic, herbs and butter.
I plump for the local seasonings, which I’m starting to rave about.
And then they arrive. A pile of maybe two dozen of these rubbery rather large buggers – about the size of a squash ball.
And I mean rubbery. Tasty yes. Looking like a bogie hanging off a toothpick, yes. But tender no.
These I chewed and chewed until I sucked all the flavour out of them. They were just too large, too numerous and too rubbery.
But I did enjoy them. A contradiction, Moi?
Frog salad in Cao Dai
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