Escargot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Escargot cooked with garlic and parsley butter in a shell (with a €0.02 coin as scale)

Escargot cooked with garlic and parsley butter outside of its shell

A single escargot, with snail tongs and a snail fork.

Escargots, in French cuisine, is a dish of cooked land snails, usually served as an appetizer. In France, escargots are typically only eaten on festive occasions.

The French word escargot (meaning snail and of Catalan origin) is almost invariably used on restaurant menus (especially in North America) to refer to snails as a food item, though in most Commonwealth countries one can also order snails in English.

Not all species of snail are edible, but many (116 different species) are. Even among the edible species, the palatability of the flesh varies from species to species. In France, two species native to France are normally used for preparing escargots. One of these, the "petit-gris" Helix aspersa, is common in temperate climates worldwide.

Because snails eat soil, decayed matter, and a wide variety of leaves, the contents of their stomachs can be toxic to humans. Therefore, before they can be cooked, the snails must first be prepared by purging them of the contents of their digestive system. The process used to accomplish this varies, but generally involves a combination of fasting and purging. The methods most often used can take several days. Farms producing Helix aspersa for sale exist in Europe and in the United States. Farm-raised snails are typically fed a diet of ground cereals.

Main article: Heliciculture

Typically, the snails are removed from their shells, gutted, cooked (usually with garlic butter), and then poured back into the shells together with the butter and sauce for serving, often on a plate with several shell-sized depressions. Special snail tongs (for holding the shell) and snail forks (for extracting the meat) are also normally provided.

Escargot is high in protein but low in fat contents if served without butter. It is estimated that escargot is 15% protein, 2.4% fat and about 80% water[1].