suck harder! and it will come out

this trip to kuching, i ate something which i have not had for about 50 years. i ate siput sedut at a seafood restaurant in kuching. in singapore, we call these snails chut-chut. the last time i ate these river or mangrove snails was under the wayang stage at lorong sinaran when i was about 12 years old. those days, these snails must have been quite cheap. i remember we had to use the bent end of a safety pin to dig out the flesh.

in kuching, they call these snails 'the midnight kiss'. when my host started making smooching noises while sucking at the meat, i realise that the name was quite appropriate. initially, i had some problem getting at the flesh. my friend chided me for my lack of experience in kissing. she said the right way was to suck at the tail end before working on the front. i was able to eat more after receiving that instruction.

another person who was eating with us commented that cleaning and preparing the snails for the dining table entails a lot of work. it is so tedious that she seldom wants to cook this dish. i remember in those bygone days the chut-chut was not cooked this way. after cleaning and knocking off the tail end, the chut-chut was simply dumped into a pot of boiling water.

i remember the hawker who sold these snails also sold clams, vinegar crabs and some big mangrove snails which were as long as 8cm.