Eating Snails at a Parisian Restaurant

I first heard that French people ate snails back when I was living in the USA. It turns out that not only do the French love their snails, they’re actually an expensive delicacy in this country. Since living here, I have seen that lots of restaurants serve escargots (snails) as part of their menu. You can typically order six or 12 as an entrée (appetizer). Curious, I decided to investigate by ordering it at a dinner with friends!

Escargots—edible land snails (as opposed to snails from the sea)

I loved it! The escargots are cooked in butter, garlic and pesto so they’re really tasty. I’ll admit, knowing that I was eating snails was a little strange, but I very quickly got over that part. The meat is a little bit chewy but yummy. Pulling the snails out of their shells with a special snail fork was also pretty fun. Best part: at the end of the meal, I used some French bread to sop up the leftover sauce!

First, the snails are either gathered wild or farmed (that’s right, there are such things as snail farms!). To get them ready for cooking, the snails are fed only cornmeal for a few days to flush out anything else they might have been eating.

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