TINNED MEAT TASTE TEST #5: CANNED SNAILS

"There's no way in hell you want to eat me," this can seemed to say, "but we both know you're going to."

I had never eaten snails before. I don't begrudge people who do eat them, I just think they're disgusting. I also knew, via basic canned food mathematics (food + can =? tastiness) that starting with canned product would give me just about the worst possible snail-eating experience.

Judging by the dust on the can, everyone else in Los Angeles shared my view.

Upon opening the can, I was confronted with a stench heretofore unheard of in relation to food. I was expecting the usual salty, processed-meat smell all my other subjects had expelled. Instead I was hit with the cold, marine smell of an aquarium in severe need of cleaning.

As the moist, swampy air filled my kitchen, my eyes began to water and my stomach heaved. Sadly, I realized I couldn't go back and readjust my scoring system for parts 1 and 2, because these things seriously break the smell scale. I would have to go negative.

SMELL: -5/10 ("My mouth is watering, but only to lubricate my throat for the upcoming vomit.")

Ho. Lee. Gawd. These things look awful. Together in the can they look downright evil; they remind me of something Hellboy would fight. I know, I know, they're garden-eating snails; what did I expect, right? But I didn't expect them to look so ... snaily.

Actually, since they're sans shell they more closely remember slugs, which is worse. Visions of slime trails on sidewalks and Leucochloridium paradoxum dance in my head.

After dying a little inside and retching over my sink, I decide to do some dishes. In fact, for 16 minutes I do whatever I can to avoid having to think about eating this thing, because just getting near enough to smell the can is making me dry heave.

APPEARANCE: -10/10 ("I can't decide if I'm hoping that goo is blood, guts, or snail slime.")

There was nothing left to do but man up and eat a goddamn snail.

I pop the stinky little gastropod into my mouth and immediately gag on the dying aquarium smell. I bite down. The texture is tougher than I thought, like a cocktail weenie that's been sitting in the crock pot all day. The meat is kind of chunky and releases slime onto my tongue. The goo beelines for the back of my throat (just like my freshman year of college!) and I can feel the vomit reflex tingling. It's sort of like when you know you have to sneeze but it's not quite there, only instead of sneezing I'm about to forcibly expel snail from my throat.

The ACTUAL taste of the snail is basically sea water. A little salty, kind of bland, but the texture of the snail combined with the horrid juice it's been soaking in should probably be reserved for a circle of hell. One of the inner ones. Where do child molesters end up? That one.

Finally, I can take no more. I throw up. I don't mean a polite little "This is gross and I must spit it out now," either. I mean full-on kneeling at the toilet heaving and crying.

I had specifically not eaten that afternoon so as to work up enough hunger to consider eating snails, so I got to enjoy nothing but lumpy brackish chunks catching in my throat and teeth.

I had failed. What was supposed to be a wacky and zany article culminating with me eating snails and Cheez Whiz had turned into a horrid night of stomach-turning agony. I downed a beer and could still taste the operculum. My stomach continued to roil and toss for an hour after the failed experiment, preventing me from trying a refreshing snail smoothie.

TASTE: -INFINITY/10