This tasty ceviche will make a great appetizer and invasive species conversation starter!

Ingredients

• 4 oz imitation crab meat, flaked
• 25 Chinese mysterysnails, fully cooked*
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1/4 red onion, chopped
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
• 2 serrano peppers, chopped
• 1 lime
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• salt and pepper

*See our instructions on cooking mysterysnails for details

Directions

1. Toss crab meat and snails in a bowl with oil and vinegar until well coated
2. Stir in tomato, onion, cilantro, and peppers
3. Squeeze in lime juice, add generous portion of salt and pepper, and stir thoroughly
4. Refrigerate at least one hour
5. Serve chilled.  We preferred tortilla chips as our ceviche medium, but experiment to find what works best for you.

Mysterysnail Ceviche served with tortilla chips

Invasivores Andy and Matt take a perfect spring afternoon to collect burdock, Chinese mystery Snails, and garlic mustard.

A Subaru of edible invaders. Photo Credit: A. Deines

At the end of a long semester, the Invasivores needed some field work.  We are, above all, ecologists and there is no lab work for self respecting ecologists on this kind of day.  We couldn’t have asked for a better one to kick-start a summer of collecting edible invasive species.

First target: Phragmites

One of the first species we were able to collect last year was phragmities, a common perennial reed in wetlands.  Munching dandelion heads, we came several weeks later this year than last and with the much earlier spring, the forest underbrush was thick.  Stinging nettles turned us back to the path.

Target two: burdock

Chaco’d feet and short-bared legs stinging, we looped back and spotted the large leaves of burdock tucked at the margin of the grass and trees.  Success! We knelt and with gentle probing, large portions of the starchy tap-root revealed themselves.  Roots and comical leaves like elephant ears in tow, the sun and sweat propelled us toward the lake.

Target three: Chinese Mystery Snails

Kayakers and bass boats floating nearby, we stepped down into Worster Lake.  The Chinese mystery snail was our first featured species at Invasivore, and we were excited to give them another go.  The shallow water was warm on bare feet and soothing on still stinging and nettled skin.  Though not at the extreme densities of many mystery snail invasions, we found a meal’s worth with only a few minutes of searching.  Success! Aquatic ecologists to the core, we turned some rocks to find a few crayfish, though we couldn’t positively identify whether they were invasive or native.  Another meal for another trip with a trap, perhaps.

 Target four: Garlic Mustard

What a love-hate relationship we have with garlic mustard. While my ecology students may never forget garlic mustard relish, my friends will never forgive me for garlic mustard ice cream.  Garlic mustard is ubiquitous this time of year in the midwest, so we thought for sure we would find a bundle.  It turns out that the park has an active program to remove garlic mustard and we found only a few plants.  Such a failure is truly a rare success!

Overall, it was quite a successful trip for these invasivores.  Keep an eye out for some recipes describing what we did with our delicious harvest!

We’re finally coming out of our shell here at invasivore.org with our first recipe, Mysterysnail Fettuccine.  Read on for all the info you need to collect and cook these tasty aquatic pests!

Snail collection

Chinese mysterysnails (Cipangopaludina chinensis) are prosobranch snails, meaning they have an operculum or “trap door” on their shell that seals up when threatened.  The adult mysterysnails that you will want to collect for eating will be approximately the size of a golf ball, and they tend to be dark brown in color but can also appear olive green.  The key distinguishing feature of Chinese mysterysnails that you may be able to distinguish in the field is the presence of three parallel rows of fine hairs that run along the center of the shell whorl, although these hairs seem to weather off over time so they can be easy to miss.

In this photo of an adult Chinese mysterysnail, the three rows of tiny hairs (indicated by arrows) are visible on the front of the shell, but have worn away around the top of the shell. Photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org.

In invaded lakes, large adult mysterysnails can often be most easily collected on large rocks in the near-shore zone of the lake.  Essentially, this means you should be able to wade into knee-deep water with a bucket and pluck a bounty of snails off the rocks.

Preparing Snails for Cooking

When you have returned to the kitchen with your snails (still alive), rinse any debris off their shells with cool running water.   Typically, when preparing other more traditional land snails such as Helix species, snails need rearing for 1-2 weeks on a diet of greens and corn meal to clear grit out of the gut and fatten them up.  In our experience, we have found that more impatient invasivores can keep collected snails in a bucket of clean water for 24-48 hours without food to effectively purge their tiny guts.  Chinese mysterysnails are incredibly hearty and should be easy to keep alive in a bucket for a few days.  Keep in mind, though, that snails are heavily regulated by the USDA, so be responsible with your catch- don’t let them escape or intentionally release them.

In their native range, Chinese mysterysnails have been implicated as vectors for human intestinal flukes.  However, to our knowledge, this has not been observed in North America.  Nevertheless, it is essential that the next step is followed completely, and that snails are cooked thoroughly before consumption! Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil, add snails, and continue to boil for 15 minutes.  Next, drain the snails and allow them to cool so that you can handle them.  Use a knife to pry the trap door of the shell open and, with a tight grasp on the trap door, pull the snail out of its shell.  Separate the foot of the snail (the dark meaty part that sticks out of the shell when the snail is crawling around- what you can see in the myserysnail picture above) from the trap door and the rest of the snail guts.  The foot is edible; dispose of the rest of the snail.

Recipe: Mysterysnail Fettuccine

Ingredients:

• 50 snails, prepared as previously described
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 package (10 oz) fettuccine noodles

Directions:

1. Cook noodles in a large pot of boiling water according to package directions
2. While pasta boils, melt butter in a pan over medium heat then add snails and minced garlic.  Stir often for 15 minutes (Remember: snails MUST be cooked thoroughly before human consumption!)
3. Drain pasta and toss with snail-butter-garlic sauce

Snail fettuccine served with fruit, corn on the cob, garlic bread, slaw, and another invasive recipe you will soon see on invasivore.org, boiled rusty crayfish. Photo credit: Ashley Baldridge

Our goal here at invasivore.org is to provide one stop where you can satisfy your craving for stimulating ecological knowledge and delectable recipes.  In this spirit, occasionally we will celebrate “species weeks” where we will feature a different invasive species, providing updates over the course of the week about the history of that species’ invasion, its ecological impacts, the economic and cultural aspects of the invasion, and, of course, recipes utilizing the featured species!

So without further ado, let’s jump right in.  Welcome to SNAIL WEEK!

Our feature this week is the Chinese mysterysnail Cipangopaludina chinensis.  This freshwater gastropod, native to

Adult Chinese mysterysnail. Photo courtesy of USGS NAS Database

southeastern China northward to Japan and eastern Russia, occurs in at least 27 states (see the map from the United States Geological Survey Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database below).  As far as snails go, the Chinese mysterysnail is even quite charismatic, growing to be approximately the size of a golf ball and reaching densities around 100 snails per square meter!

Despite its widespread occurrence and high population densities, few studies describe even basic ecology and ecosystem impacts of the species.  We’re not entirely sure what it eats, but there is limited evidence to suggest that the Chinese mysterysnail may displace native snail species (some will be reviewed in a future invasivore blog post).  But at such high densities, the Chinese mysterysnail is hard to ignore.  Adding to its mystery, the Chinese mystery snail has appeared in the literature under many different scientific names, including Bellamya chinensis, Cipangopaludina malleata, Viviparus malleatus, V. chinensis, and V. japonicas. The sparse published literature indicates that C. chinensis first arrived in North America for sale for human consumption in Asian markets (Wood 1892, The Nautilus 5: 114-115).

To summarize so far, the Chinese mysterysnail is a large snail that can reach impressive densities, and it has a history of human consumption.  We had better start eating!  The next entry in this series will describe how to find and prepare the snail, and we will unveil the first recipe on invasivore.org, mysterysnail fettuccine.