How French Are Escargots?

Ninety-five percent of snails consumed in France come from Eastern Europe. French snail farmers  want to establish some rules so that traceability is clear.

 

Roman Snail in the wild, in the grounds of a chateau that is a Buddhist retreat.

There are 500 snail farmers in France. It's a profession that didn't exist until 40 years ago and it appeared after the legislation protecting Roman Snails Helix pomatia (Fr. Escargot de Bourgogne, or Gros Blanc) was introduced and the species could no longer be collected from the wild without restrictions. It was clear that the snails would go extinct if wild collecting continued as it had in the past.

 

Prepared large Garden Snails in garlic butter, produced by a local snail farmer.

For 45 years the rules have been that you can only collect Roman Snails between 1 July and 31 March, and only if the diameter is 3 cm or more. These constraints mean that the French market cannot be satisfied. At the time of the protection legislation consumption was already at 15 000 tonnes per year. So the profession of snail farmer (Fr. héliciculteur) was invented.

 

For the best snails go to a winter gourmet or producers market (Marché des producteurs) such as this one at la Celle Guenand. The snail producer's stall is on the left.

 

They tried at first to raise Roman Snails, the same as they were used to finding in the wild. But this was a short lived experiment. It just wasn't profitable. Roman Snails take 3-5 years to mature, so faster growing species were sought. Nowadays farmed snails are an unusually large subspecies of Garden Snail Cornu aspersum maxima that is widely believed to have been sourced from Algeria (although recent genetic tests have discounted that). Garden Snails are known in French as Petit Gris, and the farmed subspecies is known as the Gros Gris. This large Garden Snail proved to have similar characteristics to the Roman Snail, and in fact proved to be more tender and less rubbery. Crucially for commercial purposes it matures in 4 to 6 months.

 

Roman Snail in the grounds of the Domaine de Candé.

 

However, restaurateurs cannot put the more prestigious Escargot de Bourgogne on their menus if they are using Gros Gris, and many have turned to the Eastern European countries to source wild collected Roman Snails. There is no legislation in Poland, Romania, Ukraine or Bulgaria protecting the species, and they have flooded the French market. But now, populations of Roman Snails in those countries are coming under threat, just as happened in France in the 1980s. On the other hand, the French population has bounced back quite well.

 

A Garden Snail that hitched a lift on some lettuce.

 

Ukraine had become a leader in snail farming, with several hundred farms producing a thousand tonnes, entirely for export, as there is no native tradition in Ukraine of eating snails. But COVID-19 brought all that to a halt as exports had to cease. Likewise in France COVID-19 nearly wiped out snail farming, as 70% of sales are made during the winter holiday season, and due to the pandemic any celebrations, markets and restaurant dining were severely restricted in November 2020 to January 2021. 

Roman Snail in the wild.

But there is no question of going back to the old days. Roman Snails will remain protected in France and only accessible to those who collect a few in the autumn and winter for personal consumption. Meanwhile, the French National Federation of Heliciculteurs is working towards certification for 'escargot francais' for the Gros Gris, in the same way that French poultry is certified.

Further Reading: A profile of one of our local snail farmers that I wrote more than a decade ago  https://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-snail-farmer.html