Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Edible Snails along with all the Edible Snails containing recipes presented on this site, with 10 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Edible Snails recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Edible Snails as a major wild food ingredient.



In Europe, edible snails are farmed. The species encountered are typically: Edible Snail Helix pomatia (also known as Burgundy snail, Roman snail and Escargot) [image, top right], the classic French escargot snail; common garden snail Helix aspersa (also known as Cornu aspersum, Cantareus aspersus, Brown garden snail, Cryptomphalus aspersus, Wall Fish) [image top, left]. Both these species are native to Europe and are intensively farmed. Also there is the Turkish snail Helix lucorum which is native to Asia Minor but which has been introduced to France for farming.

All these species are terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks (ie air-breathing land snails) that are purely herbivorous in nature. Snails are are hermaphroditic and though they prefer to reproduce sexually, exchanging sperm by means of 'love darts' they can self-fertilize, so keeping them singly will not prevent the production of eggs. About two weeks after mating snails will lay up to 80 eggs either in recesses in the topsoil or in burrows that they dig into the soft topsoil of their environment (snails cannot breed in compacted soil). The eggs typically take between two and three weeks to hatch and the baby snails reach adulthood in 2 years.

Of the three species the garden snail is the smallest weighing up to 10g both the edible snail and the Turkish snail are twice as large, growing up to 20g. Oddly enough, snail farming is very much like the farming of other herbivores, just on a much smaller scale. You need an alkaline soil with sufficient quantity of calcium carbonate in it (without this, snails cannot build shells). On this are planted feed crops for the snails (typically clover, mangold, kale, chicory, turnip rape, spinach beet, wild cabbage or other cruciferous greens). The area is then fenced with a metal wall dug deeply into the soil around the farm. This keeps out small mammalian predators and keeps the snails in. Though netting to protect the snails from avian predators is desirable, this is not typically practical.

Excessive plant growth needs to be cleared, leaving only the desirable food plants and this has to be one by hand to prevent the introduction of herbicides. If should also be noted that snail populations are self-limiting, you will never get a density of snails above 20 snails per square metre (this is because a snail's slime contains a chemical that limits fertility as snails cross each others' slime trails they pick this chemical up).

This means that you need several enclosures to keep your snails in as this allows for a progression of harvesting. Unless the microclimate of your snail farm is quite moist and humid the farm it may be required to irrigate with sprinklers once a day (typically around noon) to ensure sufficient humidity for the snails to thrive. This is another reason that nets are not used for snail enclosures as these would trap fog and dew, reducing humidity. Instead, natural avian predators are encouraged with perches and nesting boxes.

The plants chosen are also important as they should provide both food for the snails and also shelter for them. When everything is ready, young snails are introduced and they are allowed to 'get on with it'. However, now and then the snails must be provided with 'limp' (ie harvested) plant food. Typically these are legume greens which also help enrich the soil with nitrates.

When an area has been grazed, the snails are removed or harvested, the area is ploughed and then re-planted.

Some commentators say that Edible Snails cannot be grown intensively in this manner, but farms like these can be found in England, Southern Germany and Austria. It is only in France and Algeria that edible snails are extensively collected from the wild.

In Africa there are giant land snails and these are now being farmed as a source of food. These are typically Achatina spp [image, bottom] and can grow up to 40cm in length. They can be reared on trimmed leaves from banana plantations, but in Nigeria a region of bush is typically enclosed and snail eggs are introduced. they are then simply allowed to grow until large enough to be harvested.

Typically snails are boiled to kill them then they are removed from their shells, the intestinal track is removed and then they are cooked further.

Below you will find recipes for both preparing and cooking these snails: