The snails are placed into a oven safe sauce pan and mixed with garlic, butter, parsley, white wine, salt and pepper. This liquid base will be what the snails cook in when placed into the oven. You let the snails cook until tender inside the shells, then serve with bread.
Escargot is a fancier menu item served in almost every French bistro. But centuries ago in the French countryside, escargot was a meal enjoyed by low income populations, since snails were in high supply and acted as a good source of protein. The transformation of snails from a poor man's dinner to an appetizer at a posh Parisian café is one that occured over 1000s of years.
