Mediterranean, roasted or fried the snails have always been part of the gastronomic heritage of some Italian areas and also of Molise. Why should we eat snails? How can we cook them? Find out with us!

Let’s take a step back in time, because the land-snails were one of the most eaten dishes in ancient times. The Greeks appreciated them a lot (also because of their aphrodisiac properties) and they invented a particular “fork” to eat them. The ancient Romans considered them a delicious dish.
Today a little bit for sensibility and a little bit for sloth (cooking snails require time and patience), this mollusk it is no longer consumed in Molise. However, there are entrepreneurs who don’t give up, but they want to stimulate the society to discover (or re-discover) the consumption of snail.

Why eating snails? “The snail’s meat has many nutritional properties” – explain to us Lorenzo Sallustio, a young entrepreneur who is setting up a snail farming (“helicicuture” using a technical term) in Roccavivara, a small village in the province of Campobasso. Maybe not everyone knows that the citizens of Roccavivara are called “l ciammaricar d la Rocc” (in dialect “the slug eaters”). “First of all, it is a tender meat that has a low percentage of saturated fat (lower than that of the sole) because a snail eats only local vegetables or vegetables sourced from the market nearby following an idea of circular economy. The snails have moreover a protein level similar to the fish and they are a great source of vitamin B12 (more than red meat)”.
No problem for keep fit: you have to know that 12 snails are equal to 80 calories. For this reason, eating snails could be a beneficial solution both the body and for the planet: the environmental impact is not comparable to that triggered by the meat consumption (given the contained water consumption of their snail-farming).

How should we cook the snails? Here a recipe that enhance the flavour of this delicious meat: Mediterranean snails

Ingredients

• 400 gr of land snails shelled
• 250 gr of peeled tomatoes
• 50 ml of dry white wine
• 1 clove of red garlic
• 1 sprig of wild fennel
• 1 chili pepper
• Olive oil
• Salt

Procedure
Expurgate the snails in a wood or steel partially covered container. Leave it without food for 72 hours so they can empty their stomach. After the necessary time, wash them and put them in a bowl with 2 glasses of vinegar, 2 fists of salt and flip to clean them. After washed they are ready to be boiled. Put them in a pan with water and let them cook with low heat. When they are all out, high the heat and leave cook them for 20-30 minutes since the boil.
Then, drain them, remove the shells leaving the dark side and wash them again. Put the snails in a pot with oil, tomatoes, wild fennel, red garlic, chili pepper and wine and cook them with middle-low heat with the partially covered pot for thirty minutes, and flip them sometimes. Enjoy the dish!

Rosa Sallustio

Land-snail, snail farming of Lorenzo Sallustio, in Roccavivara, Molise (photo: L. Sallustio)