Snails are eaten by humans in many areas such as Africa, Southeast Asia and Mediterranean Europe, while in other cultures, snails are seen as a taboo food. Borrowed from the French word for 'snail', the term escargot is what English speakers use to specifically denote edible land snails. Snails as a food date back to ancient times, with numerous cultures worldwide having traditions and practices that attest to their consumption. In the modern era snails are farmed, an industry known as heliciculture. The snails are collected after the rains and are put to "purge" (fasting). In the past, the consumption of snails had a marked seasonality, from April to June. Now, snail-breeding techniques make them available all year. Heliciculture occurs mainly in Spain, France, and Italy, which are also the countries with the greatest culinary tradition of the snail. Although throughout history the snail has had little value in the kitchen because it is considered "poverty food", in recent times it can be classified as a delicacy thanks to the appreciation given to it by haute cuisine chefs.
Etymology of escargot
Escargot, French pronunciation: [ɛskaʁɡo] , comes from the French term for snail. Usage of the French word "escargot" dates back to 1892. The French word, first recorded in the 14th century, derives from escaragol (Provençal) and then escargol (Old French). It ultimately traces back through Vulgar Latin coculium and Classical Latin conchylium to the Ancient Greek konchylion (κογχύλιον), which meant "edible shellfish, oyster". The Online Etymological Dictionary notes that the form of the word in Provençal and French seems to have been influenced by words related to the scarab.
History Researchers have not been able to pinpoint when humans began consuming snails, although archaeological discoveries point to earlier stages than the invention of hunting. A lot of broken snail shells have been found in the Franchthi Cave, in the Greek Argolis, from the year 10,700 BCE. In Historia de gastronomía (2004), Fernández-Armesto points out the possible reasons: snails are easy to handle, and their cultivation "seems like a natural extension of harvesting".
It is difficult to go beyond the limits of a developmentalist and progressive model of the history of food, according to which it is unthinkable that no food was cultivated in such early times, but snail farming is so simple, requires so little technical effort and is conceptually so close to harvesting methods, that it seems doctrinaire to the point of stubbornness to exclude such a possibility.
– Felipe Fernández-Armesto. Many sites in the Zagros Mountains of Iraq and the Kermanshah region of western Iran are from the late Pleistocene and include snail shells that have been interpreted as food debris. Specifically, these species were mainly Helix salomonica or Levantina spiriplana. The deposits with snails from the ancient Capsian culture (present-day Tunisia) are of notable importance, as well as those found in the Cantabrian Mountains, the Pyrenees and the northern Adriatic (present-day Croatia and Slovenia), in addition to many other remains of snails throughout the Mediterranean Basin. The most convincing evidence for prehistoric land snail consumption is found in the Maghreb, beginning in the Iberomaurusian (20,000 BP) and continuing through the Capsian to at least 6,000 BP. Outside the Mediterranean region, the occurrence of land snails as food debris is less common. According to Lubell (2004b), archaeological remains of land snails have been found in the Caribbean, Peru, Texas and other parts of North America, East Africa, Sudan, Nigeria, and the Philippines. Also, archaeological remains of freshwater snails have been found in Yunnan. A snail sauce is mentioned in the Book of Rites, a Confucian text of ancient China.
Ancient Rome The Romans considered escargots an elite food, as noted in the writings of Pliny the Elder. The Roman breeder Quintus Fulvius Lippinus is considered the "father" of heliciculture, or at least, the first written reference to snail farms. Lippinus established his study center in the Tuscan city of Tarquinia to feasibly domesticate various animals, such as dormouse and wild boar, among many others. However, he was best known for his enormous snails, of which he had several species brought from Illyria to Africa. With a fatty diet he devised to fatten them, he obtained large quantities of snails, which he then marketed in Rome. His snails set the trend among the Roman upper class, and the practice became popular. Lippinus was an innovator who managed a large company that marketed his snails beyond the Mare Nostrum. In De re coquinaria, one of the complete Roman cookbooks, four recipes based on snails are mentioned. Shells of the edible species Cernuella virgata and Otala lactea have been recovered from the Roman-era city Volubilis, in present-day Morocco. They are a harbinger of the escargot found in modern souks of the country.
Modern Age
Pope Pius V, who was an avid eater of snails, decided that they had to be considered as fish to continue eating them during Lent, exclaiming: Estote pisces in aeternum! ("You will be fish forever!") In Spain, the custom continued to have continuity as can be seen in the gastronomic literature of that time. In the Libro del arte de cozina by Diego Granado, head chef of the Spanish royal household, a section was dedicated to the snail, explaining its biological characteristics, how to clean it, and various recipes on how to cook it, fry it, etc. This book was published in 1614 in Lleida, a city in western Catalonia famous for its culinary tradition of the snail. In the stricter Orthodox Church tradition of fasting, snails are still considered fully Lenten, being invertebrates, and are historically and presently popular.
Species Not all land snails are edible since many are too small—not worthwhile to prepare and cook—and the palatability of the flesh varies among species. From the genus Helix:
Helix lucorum, European snail Helix pomatia, Roman snail or Burgundy escargot, is the most consumed species in France Helix salomonica From the family Achatinidae:
Lissachatina fulica (formerly Achatina fulica), giant African snail, is very popular. From the genus Cepaea:
Cepaea nemoralis, grove snail, known as rayado ('striped' snail) in Spain Cepaea hortensis, white-lipped snail From the genus Otala:
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