John Kesson

“ The vine-growers have a double interest in the escargot. They would rather he did not make selection of this plant for his meals, which he injures, but since Nature will have it so, they avenge themselves on the animal, and capture them in hosts to send to market. For many years the escargot has been an article of commerce for food. In former times it was only herbalists and druggists who dealt in snails, or escargots. The snail pounded in a mortar, and then boiled with milk, was regarded as a remedy in phthisical diseases. ”

“ The doctors consider the escargot, properly cooked, very nutritious and digestible; but care must be had that they have been properly purged, for, as already stated, the escargot takes a fancy to feed sometimes on the hemlock plant, and sometimes on belladonna; and cases of poisoning have been known through ignorance of this fact, and cooking them too soon after being gathered.
“But,” said Wagstaff, in conclusion, “if the escargot has its merits as an aliment, it has its demerits in another respect. It causes great damage to the vine crop. ”

“ The amount of Wagstaff’s conchological information respecting the escargot, I sum up in what follows:
The escargot feeds principally upon the vine, and it is those only which feed upon this plant which are brought to market. The animal, however has a whim occasionally, and feeds upon hemlock, which does not disagree with it, but which renders it prudent to place him in quarantine before he is admitted into the kitchen. ”

“ He must have been a man in desperate plight who first swallowed an oyster—no doubt a shipwrecked mariner on a desert island, who made the bold experiment in ostraphagy before attempting anthropophagy on the person of the black cook or cabin-boy who had been wrecked along with him. ”

“ The shell weighs from four to four and a-half grammes. It follows that the escargots sold in the Dijon market represent more than 16,000 lbs. weight of alimentary food, equivalent to that furnished by the flesh of 150 ordinary calves.
In Algiers may be seen in the markets enormous heaps of these snails, which are sold by the bushel and the hundred, and which are consumed chiefly by the Spaniards and the Provençals. In several countries the cultivators eat no other food than escargots, which is considered the contrary of fattening. ”