In France, they remove the snail from the shell, clean it, and cook it with herbs and butter. They serve it in the clean shell, and you dig it out with a little fork and dip bread in the melted herb butter.
In Spain, I saw snail served once—cooked in the shell. They looked exactly like snails you might pick up in your yard, except they were cooked. I couldn’t handle those.
Snails are very close cousins to clams, but do not taste the same.
They are exactly the same varity of snails we find in American gardens.
They were imported by a frenchman homesick for a taste of home.
And they are starved for a time to clean out their intestinal tract.
And they are starved for a time to clean out their intestinal tract.