Morning journal and courier., 1889-04-04
SNAILs FOR FOOD.
Some People Like she Slimy Mollusks
 and Call Them Delicious.

some People L1ke bne Sllmy mOluskDs and Call Them Delicious. From the New York Press.l
 "Do you mean to say you have much of 8 | trade in those thingss" asked Press report | CT of Foulton Market fish dealer, pointing | to peculiarly shaped box lined with sEel- yes, over which crawled hundreds of snails.
 1 fact, :" replied the dealer, "but there is al- ways a steady demand for them, SO keep l them in stock. Most of the snails brought | to the New York market are raised in that land of red mud and mosquitoes, Jersey. | There number of small farmers do nothing ! else but raise and fatten them. It is no l new thing, you know, to devote time and money to the snail culture abroad, for both | in France, Germany and some parts of Eng- ! land, these lazy mollusks are much admired ! by epicures. The taste for them in this | country has scarcely become popular as yet, | one would think, especially down town in | the vicinity of Wall street, where snails are regularly served.
 | f'Did you ever eat any yourselfa"
 1 '1 have, many time; and properly ! cooked ripe fat snail is delicious. By ripe | mean that condition in which snails are when about to retire into g. state of torpidity I for the winter. Like all hibernating anil mals, snails then lay on a thick coating of | fat, and it is when in this condition that ! they are considered best. There are a num- Der of ways in which snails may be cooked ! to advantage. One is to broilsthem and season with pepper and vinegar. Soaked in salt and water and then served in the many ways iu which oysters, scallops and peri wrinkles are eaten, they are excellent. In I general" continued the dealer, launching \ into snail history, Git may be said that the Kentish snail, so called because first found | in the country of Kent, England, is upon the wholeithe finest edible variety yet discov- | cred. This snail has rosy lip and delicate | blush, is of good size, takes on fat readily, \ and has delicious flavor. In England ! snails are not used so much as an ordinary article of food as for delicacy at stated \ feasts. For instance, at Newcastle the | glass manufacturers, at their yearly banquet, are famous for their snail dishes. The 1 Dartmoor mutton, the. finest in the world, is ! supposed to get it's rich flavor from the ! snails eaten by the sheep. It is we'll | known fact that snails were common dish | with the Romans and that the epicures of | that nation raised them of an enormous ] size. On many parts of the continent snails ! are commonly eaten, and from certain snail | farms near Ulen, in Wurtemberg, no fewer l than 10, ,000, ,000 of these creatures are sent yearly to other gardens to be fattsned before l they are shipped for the use of the Austrian l converrs during Lent. From Troyes alone it has been calculated that snails to the val l ue of $100, ,000, the wholesale price being four sous per hundred, are forwarded to the l markets of Paris. Some of these French l snalls are put up in casks and shipped to
 this country, but the Jersey article is rather
 driving the foreign from our markets.
 Snails are supposed to be eficacious in cur
 ! ing consumption, and boiled in milk are
 still used for this purpose in some parts of
 ! England. At one time they were used in
 that country in the manufacture of imita-
 tion cream, and, despite acts of Parliament
 prohibiting such manufacture, they are even
 yet bruised and stewed in milk to form one
 of the tolerably palatable articlesawhich pass
 ] under that name."