from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Snails
www.flickr.com/photos/jamingray/2714901432/
Enjoying the snail
family.
Ordering snails in France should not be
strange. If you like seafood that includes winkles, periwinkles, cockles,
mussels, and conchs, etc.; they are all in the same family as snails, in fact,
they are very close family members.
In France, and the French know a thing or
two about good food, snails are considered to be among the tastiest members of
their extended family. The central and
very obvious difference is that escargots grow on the land and not in the sea.
The
Burgundy Snail The Blue
Mussel
Photograph
courtesy of
Photograph courtesy of
What do snails taste like?
The meat of all the members of the snail
and their seafood family members family is similar; however, when asked, I do
not say they taste like chicken! The texture of snail meat is like that of
their family members, think of mussels. The sauce and cooking method, exactly like many chicken
dishes, may change the taste.
If you like mussels and or cockles, you
will love snails, and if you have been to the Caribbean and enjoyed conchs you
will love France's snails even more,
What did the Romans
ever do for us?
Well, the Romans
brought us edible snails.
The two snails on French menus have been
natives of France, Germany, Spain, and the UK since the Roman’s brought their
favorite Italian snacks with them 2,000 years ago. The Romans taught the French
how to manage snail farms and also invented a method of creating artificial
rain to make the snails and the snails’ favorite foods grow faster.
These same snails became natives of
California during the gold rush days when immigrants from France, Italy,
Germany and Spain imported them and raised them as food. Now, in the USA,
these snails are farmed and sold to restaurants; however, in the wild, the
descendants of the original snail immigrants are considered pests.
Snails in the languages of France’s
neighbors:
(Catalan -caragols de terra ), (Dutch -slakken), (German - schnecke),
(Italian – lumache or conchiglia), (Spanish – caracoles).
Escargots à la
Bourguignonne.
Snails in the manner
of Burgundy.
Trying snails for
the first time.
If you are reticent about trying snails,
do not order a whole portion, snails are sold in dozens, and you may order just
half-a-dozen in most restaurants. Ask.
Consider dipping your little toe in first, just to test the water, and
for that, you do not even have to eat a snail.
Just like when you first ordered mussels order a small portion. In
France when you order your first half portion of snails, order a demi-douzaine
d'escargot, the smallest portion sold, of Escargots à la Bourguignonne, snails
prepared in the manner of Burgundy. Your
order will bring you half a dozen snails cooked in the manner of Burgundy;
France’s most famous recipe snail recipe.
The sauce in which the snails are prepared, and served, in this dish is
half the enjoyment. The snails are
always cooked outside the shell so if you do not like the shell I am sure they
will do the necessary, many bistros, in any case, serve snails without the
shell.
Escargots
Served without their shells
A half dozen snails
prepared in a garlic accented sauce.
www.flickr.com/photos/zombie/977463258/
For that first test take some of that
excellent French bread on your table and dip it into the sauce that comes with
the snails; just try the bread and the sauce alone, without the snails. If you liked the bread and the sauce then,
for your next test, try half a snail with the bread and the sauce. The
combination of that excellent sauce with a tasty snail should be enough to have
you hooked and already ordering another half-dozen snails to make up a whole
portion.
While France has a number of edible land
snails, only two are seen in the market, and on restaurant menus; they are
farm-raised snails; you may also see organically certified snails on some
menus. Snails may be served with a broad range of recipes, and all traditional
restaurants or bistros will have at least one snail recipe on the menu.
Snails on French menus:
Cassolette
de Scampis
et Escargots à la Crème d'Ail
- A very different dish to the
traditional meat and poultry cassoulets
from the south; in fact, there is no connection other than the name, none
whatsoever. Here the scampi, in French langoustine,
the Dublin Bay Prawn will have been shelled and served with petit-gris
snails cooked in a cream of garlic
sauce.
Escargot a l’Alsacienne
– Snails in the manner of the Alsace.
The snails will be cooked in the Alsatian
white Riesling wine and served with snail
butter. This dish will usually be prepared with the smaller petit-gris
snail. The Alsace is an old region in the north-east of France that since 1-1-2016 together with the regions of Lorraine and the Champagne-Ardennes are part of the new
super
region of the Grand Est.
Escargot a l’Alsacienne
Snails in the manner of the Alsace.
Escargot à la Provencal – Snails served in the manner of Provence. These will be
the smaller petit-gris snails served in a fresh tomato sauce, flavored with garlic, pepper, and parsley.
Escargots à la Bourguignonne – Snails in the manner of Burgundy. This
is the most famous of all snail recipes. Snails prepared with herbs,
especially parsley,
cream and beurre
d’escargots, snail butter. Snail butter is butter, garlic, shallots and
parsley with an occasional additional herb, in which the snails are
cooked. This sauce is a garlic flavored but is certainly not an overtly
garlicky sauce; it is made with cold and crushed, but previously boiled garlic
cloves, that significantly reduces garlic’s strength. Snail
butter, by the way, does not and never did contain any snails; this special
butter sauce will be used in many other dishes without snails. In
escargots à la Bourguignonne the snails are taken out of their shells,
prepared, cooked, and then, optionally, replaced in their shells and lightly
baked in the oven. This dish is about as close as you can get to snail heaven.
Escargots à la Bourguignonne.
www.flickr.com/photos/dionhinchcliffe/5460106962/
Cassoulet
d’Escargots –
There are many recipes for Cassoulet d”Escargot with most including
butter, garlic, shallots, parsley, and crème fraiche.
Some will include mushrooms and others different herbs. None of the recipes
have any connection to the cassoulets
made with pork, goose, and sausages.
Une Cassolette d'Escargots
A snail cassoulet.
www.flickr.com/photos/rc_fotos/6964737301/
Salade d'Escargots de Vendée
Bio et Andouille de Guéméné. - A salad of organically raised snails
from the department of Vendée
served with France's popular Andouille tripe sausages. The
andouilles served here are reconsidered the top of the line Guémené Andouilles
from Guémené-sur-Scorff in Brittany. Andouille sausages are an acquired
taste but one of France's favorites. The department of Vendée is in the region
of the Pays-de-la-Loire and on France's Atlantic coast. Vendée is
internationally famous for its bi-annual single-handed around the Vendée Globe
world yacht race with upwards of 400 participants.
The snails on your
menu will be one of the following:
Escargot de Bourgogne, also called the Gros
Blanc, Lunar or La Vignaiola - The Burgundy
snail; also sometimes called the great white. These are the most expensive of
the two snails that may be in contention. Burgundy snails have a striped
yellow-brown meat and they may grow to about 4.5 cms; some may grow a little
larger, but these snails are considered at their best when around 20
grams each.
The Burgundy snail in the languages of
France’s neighbors:
(Catalan - caragol de Borgonya ), (Dutch - wijngaardslak
), German - burgunder schnecke, gros bourgogne, gros blanc), (Italian - vignaiola bianca , lumaca della
Borgogna, ), (Spanish - caracol romano),
(Latin - helix pomatia ).
Petit-gris, Luma, Lumas, Chagriné, Carsaulada, Escargot
Chagrine, La Zigrinata, and Cargouille - The small gray snail or the common snail. In France, petit-gris is the most popular
snail as it is the least expensive. This snail also has many more local names
than the few I have noted above; every area of France has snail farms and the names
locally used for the petit-gris are traditional. If the menu just says escargot, then the odds
are that you are being offered the petit-gris. The petit-gris has brown-gray
meat, and they are ready for the pot when they reach around 10 grams each.
The Petit-Gris snail in the languages of
France’s neighbors:
(Catalan - caragol bover or caragol moro
), (Dutch - segrijnslak),(German - kleinen grauen ), (Italian - la ligure, chiocciola
zigrinata, la piccola lumaca grigia,),
(Spanish – caracol europeo marron, burgajo), (Latin - helix aspersa).
Only farmed snails
will be on the menu.
These ancient Roman comfort foods are
today found in the wild all over Europe and North America, and I am sure that
others are in the wild on other continents. Despite the obvious draw of tasty
free food chefs do not cook wild snails; all the snails served in France are
farmed. Farming snails ensures that the
food they are fed does not include any agricultural pesticides, and those may
be found in wild snails. If you cook snails at home, then buy them canned or
from a local snail farm that you can trust.
France does not farm
enough snails for export.
They have to import
to meet local demand.
Most North America’s snails come
from local snail farms. Despite that, North American snail production it is
still a growing industry and does not produce enough to meet the local
demand. East European and Chinses farmed
snails are available canned.
Apart from many menus in West and Eastern
Europe; snails are also part of the diet in most Central and South American
countries. The recipes for snails in
Central and South America may have been influenced by the Conquistadors, but
their consumption had begun much earlier, with local snail varieties.
Canned, large, tasty
and chopped African snails
are on sale in
French supermarkets.
In Africa, snails are also part of the
local diet, and some very large snails are raised commercially. These large
African snails may be seen when canned, precooked, and sold as chopped
snails. If the label doesn’t say Petit
gris or Bourgogne, then the odds are that they will be one of those big,
farmed, African snails. I have been told that these cheaper canned snails are
used by some small restaurants in snail soups and by taste alone cannot be
detected.
Snail recipes
In the south of France, snails will often
be barbecued at family get-togethers, especially in areas with Catalan
influences. In the north of France,
snails may be on the menu as snail profiteroles, that is snails cooked, each in
its own pastry casing, and served with sauce. When you begin to enjoy snails,
which you will, a whole new world will open up. To see the most popular snail
recipes just enter the words “recettes escargot” on Google or Bing and you will
have hundreds to choose from.
-------------------------------------------------
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright 2010,
2014, 2019
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