Raising Snail

choi

Jeff Gordinier, The Snail Wrangler; This woman knows what's in a tender snail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/1 ... -in-california.html
(a snail farm in Central Valley, California; a photo caption: "Mary Stewart, a snail rancher, wants to branch out into selling snail eggs, which taste like a milder version of salmon roe")


Note:
(a) Ms Mary Stewart describes her experience of being hurt by a snail's "love dart": "It’s like a splinter. It hurts. I shoved one under my finger one time because I was cleaning the bin. Oh, that sucker was sore for weeks.”
(i) splinter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splinter
(ii) sucker (n):
"5c: —used as a generalized term of reference <see if you can get that sucker working again>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sucker

(b) For chef de cuisine, see chef
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef
(section 2.1 Chef de cuisine, executive chef and head chef)

(c) The article, in the Dining section which appears every Thursday in NYT, states, "A signature dish at Tertulia, Seamus Mullen’s Asturian-cider-house-style restaurant in the West Village, is arroz a la plancha, a sort of griddle-crisped risotto in which Ms. Stewart’s snails emerge as earthy nubs of texture within a mound of rice, mushrooms and jamón Ibérico."
(i) cider house
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cider_house
(ii) Eater Sound Bites – Tertulia’s Seamus Mullen Makes Arroz a La Plancha. Tertulia, undated.
http://tertulianyc.com/category/video/
(video #2)
(iii) The Spanish masculine noun "arroz" is rice.
(iv) The Spanish masculine noun "plancha" is "plate" or "grill."
"a la plancha" = grilled
http://dictionary.reverso.net/spanish-english/plancha

(d) The article next says, "Ms. Stewart’s impart an herbal undercurrent and a 'funky nuttiness' without the ick factor of interior grit."

funky (adj): "(slang) unconventional, eccentric, offbeat, etc"
http://www.collinsdictionary.com ... owCookiePolicy=true
(e) escargot (n; French for snail; First Known Use  circa 1892):
"a snail prepared for use as food"

Note its pronunciation. All English definitions are from www.m-w.com, except otherwise noted.
(f) For Pepperidge Farm pastry shells, see
Puff pastry shells. Pepperidge Farm, undated.
http://www.pepperidgefarm.com/Pr ... 67&prdID=112172

Sold as (empty) shells--or called cups. Can be round, square, or hexagonal.
(g) The article explains Ms Stewart "in 1989 began a career as a snail rancher."

Because she identifies herself as a rancher, her farm implicitly as a ranch (as opposed to my choice of word: farm), the title of the NYT article uses a fancier word to describe her: wrangler 牛仔.
(h) sentient (adj; Latin sentient-, sentiens, present participle of sentire to perceive, feel):
"responsive to or conscious of sense impressions <sentient beings>"