Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1894 — Snail Eating. [ARTICLE]

Snail Eating.

We shall never, in all likelihood, grow to share the French taste for edible snail, though the big escargot is common enough in many parts of England, where tradition says they were introduced by the Romans, and still live on round the sites of their villas, lhe escargot is really at its best when taken in the vineyards at the end of March and the beginning of April. They live on the shoots of the vines, and during the winter bury themselves in the ground, during which time, like the souls hung up to air In hades, they are purged of

all gross humors before they return to enjoy themselves in the Elysian fields in spring. Cooking the snails is not an easy matter. They are drawn from the shell, which is then carefully scrubbed and washed. Their heads are cut off, and they are well soaked in salt and water, then returned to the shell, which is stopped with parsley batter and laid to simmer in a hot dish over the fire. An enthusiast sent the writer some dozens, taken at the right season, from his vineyard in Burgundy, with a few bottles of red and white wine (Corton) made from the juice of the grapes from the vines on which they hsd fed, in order, as he said, that “the snails when eaten might find themselves en pays de connaissance.” The combination was excellent, and, though there may be two opinions about the flavor of the escargot, there is no doubt that both in taste and substance it is an edible unlike any other known. The Wiltshire people, especially the population of Swindon, eat the large garden snails as a common dainty.—The Spectator.