Snails, too, play a very important part in our ordinary daily food, although the snail-hater would scoff at the idea. But it is even so. What think you imparts to South Down and Dartmoor mutton its fine flavour and highly nutritive properties? Snails! The grass upon which they feed teems with small snails of the Helix caperata species, and these, with or without the will of the sheep, form part of the diet of the latter, taken with the grass.
The Burgundy snail, however, has become more and more scarce during the past few seasons. The Council General of the Department of the Côte d’Or seriously took up the question, and asked the Prefect of the department to authorize a close time for snails between 15 April and 15 June. The Prefect replied that he had no power to make such an order, as the snail was not game. The Council thereupon voted a protest, and expressed the hope that the snail might rank in the category of game, and be accorded a close time.
The French sportsman’s category of game is tolerably wide, and includes birds which we do not rightly understand under that generic title. Still, to include snails as game seems a trifle—well, far-fetched. It would be difficult to shoot snails, save with a pop-gun at perhaps six feet. It might be easier to stalk them. After all, we have a close time for oysters, which are not much more game-like than snails. The point for France surely is not whether snails should rank as reptiles or insects, vermin or cattle, but whether they are worth preserving. And the Burgundy snail is.
In the time of Pliny, we are told, a concoction of snails beaten up in warm water was recommended for coughs. The Romans were very fond of snails, which they fattened in special “cochlearia,” feeding them with bran soaked in wine until they attained quite large dimensions. Charles the Fifth of Spain died of indigestion brought on by eating immoderately of snails.
Mrs. Delaney, writing in 1758, says: “Two or three Snails should be boiled in the barley-water which Mary takes, who coughs at night. She must know nothing of it. They give no manner of taste.”
The first importation of Snails into England has been attributed to Sir Kenelm Digby (1645) for his wife. Also the apple snail was brought to the South Downs of Surrey and Sussex, as well as to Box Hill in the sixteenth century, by one of the Earls of Arundel for his Countess, who dressed and ate them to promote the cure of consumption, from which she suffered.
Snails did not really come into French vogue until the return of Louis XVIII, in 1814, on which occasion the Bishop of Autun entertained the Emperor Alexander of Russia. The popular host, who was a famous gastronome, had in his service a most accomplished cook, the best in Paris at that time; they put their heads together and hit upon Snails as the most suitable novelty for presenting to the imperial guest. Together with this dish, which was handed round, there appeared on the card under the heading Escargots à la Bourgignonne a description of the delicious seasoning with which each shell was filled up.
In 1854, M. de la Marr, of Paris, set forth the virtues of Helicin as a glutinous extract obtained from snails, and which had long been given in broth as a successful domestic remedy for pulmonary phthisis.
Gipsies are great snail eaters, but they first starve these gasteropods, which are given to devour poisonous plants, and must be rendered free from the same, for it is certain that Snails retain for a time the flavour and odour of the vegetables on which they feed.
The above most interesting particulars may be read, at greater length, in a compendious and reliable work, entitled “Meals Medicinal,” by Dr. W. T. Fernie.