I've had snails - "bovoeti" is the local term - here in Italy, and... yeah. There was so much garlic you couldn't really taste much else. And there are other, better things to eat, like octopus. One of the things I'm very proud of as a father is having cultivated a wide range of tastes in our ~6 year old daughter, who happily slurps down octopus tentacles at one of the local food carts. And they are good - I'm happy to take anyone who stops by Padova to have some.

My Neapolitan grandmother taught me similarly, by the simple expedient of not telling me what I was eating until I had already decided I liked it. Smart woman, my grandmother.