Why DO the French Eat Snails?

‘Did you know Daddy eats snails?’ one of our daughters asked another the other day. ‘That’s disgusting!’

‘Does he eat spiders too?’ asked Elise.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Why not?’ she asked.

‘Good question,' I said. 'I don’t know.’

I mean, if my French husband Maxime eats something as unappetising (and slimy) as a snail, then why stop there? Why not ingest arachnids and suck on slugs? And so I put the matter to him.

‘Spiders have no meat,’ explained Maxime. ‘Snails are a lean meat with a nice texture.’

‘I think the snails are just a nice excuse to have garlic butter. But why not put the garlic butter on something nice, like chicken?’

‘Non!’ exclaimed Maxime, getting surprisingly agitated. ‘The combination of chicken with garlic sauce would be AWFUL! They don’t compliment one another. You need the snail texture.’

The combination of the snail-y texture with garlic sauce. Quite frankly, the thought of snail texture makes me gag. Mind you, I have eaten snails. The first time was in an Alsatian winstub (a 'wine pub', serving rustic local fare). I’d been dismayed to find the snails were served still in their shells. (It’s one reason I avoid crustaceans – I hate having to dismember something in order to eat it.) Maxime had then shown me how to hold the snail shell with the special snail tongs and prise it out with the special snail-gouging fork (and although it involved no dismembering, I still found the process quite disturbing). As I forced myself to chew the freshly shucked snail, I enjoyed the warm garlic butter sauce but I didn’t have the impression the snail added anything to the experience and more than a piece of rubber would have.

‘Snail has quite a subtle taste,’ Maxime had said, chewing with pleasure, a far-away look in his eyes.

‘Like dirt,’ I said, spoiling the moment somewhat.

‘No!’ Maxime replied, forced yet again to defend his national cuisine against my barbaric cluelessness. 

He raised his hands as if about to expound upon the loveliness of snail, but then let them fall in defeat. I was a hopeless case. (But it did taste like dirt.) I allowed Maxime to finish my snails while I concentrated on the wine he had chosen for the meal: a Riesling. He'd explained you need to pair snails with a dry wine. I imagine it was dry to counterbalance the sliminess.

Then I wondered how people ever came to eat snail. I wondered if during some sort of medieval wartime, the French began to eat them to avoid starvation. They’d sometimes been driven to eat rat in wartime, I knew. But then for some reason in time of peace, they continue to enjoy snails but shun fricassee of rat.

Actually, I read that the French have been eating snails at least since Roman times – as the Romans did too, apparently. Indeed, Maxime and I ate snails on holiday in Rome (I gave them a second chance – it was a two-Michelin-star restaurant. I'd wondered if two star snails would do it for me. Nup. Still tasted like dirt. Expensive dirt in this case.).

I had no more contact with snails after that until another holiday a few years later, this time in Burgundy. We had kids by this time and our five-year-old Chloé had come upon a snail on the hotel terrace. She ‘rescued’ it, putting it in a glass full of ice. I didn’t view being put in an ice bath as being rescued personally, but I left Chloé to it.

‘What are you rescuing the snail from?’ I asked her.

‘From the hunters!’ she replied.

‘Snail hunters? People don’t hunt snail.’ They sort of don't require chasing.

On the other hand, I reflected, maybe people gather them, as they gather mushrooms and things. Maybe that’s a sort of hunting? I decided it was best to keep this upsetting idea from Chloé, the small defender of snail rights. And things went well until lunch the next day when Maxime ordered half a dozen snails as an entrée.

‘Maxime, what are you doing?’ I hissed at him. ‘You know Chloé is attached to snails at the moment!’

What would Chloé do when she saw Papa dining on murdered molluscs?

The answer, to my relief, was nothing. Chloé apparently didn’t connect the need to hunt with the fact that Papa was eating something. Similarly, she’d been terribly upset to find out that her grandfather hunted deer, but didn’t react to people eating venison stew, as we did a lot in autumn in Alsace.

Venison – now there’s an improvement on snail. But as for the French, they eat snail because they really actually like it. There's also the French attraction to frogs' legs - another highly emotive issue. I'll deal with that next time!