Snails are an important part of the Mechanicsburg diet and culture. The reason for this is that, historically, the “water of the Dyne caused the snails to grow huge and they had a choice, blow them up or eat them. Turns out, they are tasty!”[1]
Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle offers a couple more semi-canonical details: during his war with the Heterodynes, The Storm King had Mechanicsburg under siege for an extended period, which (further?) encouraged the consumption of any available food-source, and that the selling of snails as food has become a major (and semi-covert) money-maker for the city in recent years.
Snail references in the comic[]
- In the 2005-05-09 (Monday) ✣ comic André suggests performing The Heterodyne Boys and the Racing Snails of Dr. Zegreb in Zumzum.
- The 2007-02-28 (Wednesday) ✣ comic shows a street vendor hawking snails (“Fat green snails! Try’em inna pie! Fat red snails! My oh my!”) as Arella listens to marketplace rumors.
- The 2008-07-18 (Friday) ✣ comic shows a vendor selling “Garlic! Cheese!” and “new! Chocolate” snails from a cart as the Torchmen are activating.
- In 2009-03-20 (Friday) ✣ there is a reference to "the unsettlingly large, acidic snails of Professor Yungbluth".
- When Maxim Buys A Hat ✣ , Ol’ Man Death prepares a “racing trilobite” sandwich - grilled snail and Swiss on rye.
- The 2011-12-16 (Friday) ✣ comic shows a poster for a snail festival.
- The 2012-05-11 (Friday) ✣ comic has a shop selling Markyys Brand Snails ("Slow and Sweet"). A sign on the shop says "Green Devils are In!". There is a zine called Green Devil Face, issue 4 has a "mini-dungeon" called "House of Snails". "Green Devils" was also a nickname of the Fallschirmjäger in WWII.
- The 2013-03-13 (Wednesday) ✣ comic shows two Mechanicsburg establishments selling snails.
- In the 2013-04-22 (Monday) ✣ comic, Van says there are a thousand and one things Mechanicsburg chefs can do with snails, and Agatha says she's hungry enough that even snails sound good. Van then recommends the snail gelato, and Agatha says she must be starving to death.
- The upper left corner of 2014-05-21 (Wednesday) ✣ shows SNA on a Mechanicsburg building, likely the start of SNAILS.
- The 2015-10-07 (Wednesday) ✣ comic shows a poster advertising Heterodyne Style Snail Cheese in the Black Market in Paris.
- In the comic for 2015-11-18 (Wednesday) ✣ , the Mole King regrets that, since the Mechanicsburg time freeze, he can no longer get his favorite cave snail, Mechanicsburg blue-whorled grunters.
- In the comic for 2016-10-07 (Friday) ✣ is a poster for Heterodyne Snail Liqueur. And in 2017-06-26 (Monday) ✣ is a poster for Linsey Miller's Snail Tonic.
- In the future there is snail racing ✣ with a Golden Snail prize ✣ at the Mechanicsburg Harvest Festival. The theft and recovery of the Golden Snail is the topic of the Ivo Sharktooth PJ story. The story also shows Snail Ale ✣ being dispensed at the Stopped Clock and a street vendor with a snail hat selling snails ✣ .
- On arriving in England, Agatha meets a fellow passenger who purchased ✣ Snail Polish in Paris with a picture of Agatha on the label. It is a mystery whether it is made of snails, intended for polishing snails, or both.
- In the Black Spot Teahouse in the Londinium branch of the Hall of Privateers, Violetta gets a little too "jolly" ✣ when consuming lots of cake and tea (rum cake and rum tea - "There's rum in everything!"), but then quickly goes from jolly to belligerent to maudlin, saying, "Yeah? What's that got to do with the price of snails? Poor little slimy disgusting snails…"
- At the start ✣ of "A Mechanicsburg Solstice Story" Phil appears to eat a plate of candied (or colored) snails and then helps the kitchen deliver ✣ a large cooked snail on a bed of greens.
- In the Solstice Story Jägerstomp ✣ the Mechanicsburg Candy Company is offering Chocolate Solstice Snails.
- In "A Mechanicsburg Solstice Story", Castle Heterodyne tells ✣ how Clytemnestra Narcia Greenclaw, at the age of six, chased Hubert Gearmacher for stealing her marzipan snail.
- During a comic break we see a black and white poster ✣ for Apassionata von Mollusk: Dance of the Seven Snails, a "sensuous" performance occurring nightly at Mamma Gkika's. Later we see a colored version ✣ . The colored version appears on a Mechanicsburg wall ✣ in the Mechanicsburg Guild of Monsters story.
- Later ✣ in the Guild of Monsters story we see a someone riding a large snail and a children's play area in Key Park with toy snails to sit on.
See Also[]
References
- ↑ Reddit Ask-Me-Anything, 30 May 3013:
Lightningnettle
How did snails become such an important part of the Mechanicsburg diet?
studiofoglio
Kaja: They're delicious says Phil!
Phil: The water of the Dyne caused the snails to grow huge and they had a choice, blow them up or eat them. Turns out, they are tasty!