The ancients held snails in especial esteem for the table. The Romans had many species served up at their feasts, which they distinguished in categories according to the delicacy of their flesh. Pliny tells us that the best were imported from Sicily, from the Balearic Isles, and from the Isle of Capri, the last dwelling-place of the aged Tiberius. The largest came from Illyria. Ships proceeded to the Ligurian coast to gather them for the tables of the Roman patricians. The great consumption led to the establishment of parks (Cochlearia, Varro; Cochlearum vivariá, Pliny), in order to fatten the animals, as is now done with oysters. They were fed for this end upon various plants mixed with soup; when it was desired to improve the flavour a little wine and sometimes laurel leaves were added. These parks were formed in humid shady places surrounded by a foss or a wall. Pliny has even transmitted to us the name of the inventor of the Cochleariæ, a certain Fulvius Hispinus. Addison describes with details one of these establishments kept up by the Capuchins at Fribourg in Switzerland, in imitation of the ingenious Roman gourmet we have named.
Among the Romans, snails were served at the funeral repast. Certain heaps of their shells, which are found in the cemetery of Pompeii, are the remains of those funeral festivities with which the inhabitants of the buried city honoured the tombs of their friends and relations.
The practice of eating snails had fallen into disuse in Europe when, in the seventeenth century, John Howard, the philanthropist, began to collect them with the view of reintroducing them as human food. He chose Helix Varronis, which was probably the species cultivated by the Romans; it surpasses all those of Europe in size, and was found plentifully in the district of Bagnes, in the Valois. Howard, having procured the species from Bagnes, found their increase so rapid that the crops were likely to be devoured by the swarms of molluscs thus brought together, and steps were at once taken to destroy them. In other parts of Europe the snail continues to be sought for as an article of luxury. They are consumed at Vienna in great numbers during Lent, supplies being brought from the Swiss canton of Appenzell. At Naples a soup made from Helix nemoralis is sold publicly to the strange population with which the streets of that city swarm, for the king's pavement is their bed-chamber, dining-saloon, and work-room. In France, snails are a valuable resource to the poor in the southern departments.
The flesh of all snails is not alike in a culinary point of view. Amateurs class as first in quality Helix vermicula, called at Montpelier the Little Hermit, because it buries itself so deeply in its shell. Helix aspersa (Figs. 193, 194, 195) is thought to be more tender and delicate. In Provence a species is called tapada, that is, "closed," from the cretaceous deposit with which it closes its shell.
Fig. 193. Helix aspersa (Müller).
In the north of France, and round Paris, Helix pomatia is the favourite culinary snail (Fig. 196). This is the species which is used as a speaking sign-board over the doors of the wine-shops and small restaurants in the neighbourhood of the Halles, at Paris. Its shell is globose and tun-shaped, very solid, marked with irregular transverse stripes of a brownish rust colour, with bands, often nearly effaced, of a deeper tint, and of the same colour. The animal is large, of a yellowish grey, and covered with elongated irregular tubercles.
Fig. 194. Helix aspersa (Müller). Fig. 195. Helix aspersa (Var. Scalaris).