Our viands

Again, in the south of France and Italy you see people eating with relish the sea urchin, brought to table, like oysters, in the shell, and scooped out with a spoon. Having purchased some of these to bring home as curiosities, I could not induce the natives to believe I did not want to eat them, so they invariably cut and trimmed them for table, thus spoiling them as specimens. The trepang of the Chinese, consisting of the sea cucumber dried, most probably strongly resembles these sea urchins in flavour. 148 OUR VIANDS We have left to the last a favourite French and Italian dish, namely snath— in French escargots — which several writers have lately been advocating both as food and medicine. It would seem from these articles, that snails and slugs are still sought and eaten in some parts of Wiltshire, being in season only when dormant during the winter, when they are taken, soaked in salt and water, and grilled on the bars of the grate. Probably they are quite as good as the periwinkle, so greedily devoured by those who would look upon the snail with disgust, and who would reject a dish of spring cabbage, because a careless cook had allowed a slug to remain ensconced in the leaf upon which it had been feeding when consigned to the pot. Snails and slugs — especially the latter — are supposed to be particularly efficacious as a remedy in consumption, being not only eaten, but also crushed and rubbed on the chest and back, and we have known this snail juice extolled as superior to cod-liver oil. In France the escargots are dried and prepared as a lozenge for coughs. It would appear, according to the writer of a very interest- ing article on the subject in the Standard^ that 'in several parts of England snails are regularly eaten ; not, it is true, as an ordinary article of diet, but at stated feasts, and considerable quantities are collected round Lorfdon and exported to France.' But the same writer adds: — 'The Latin people are its principal friends, whilst it is rejected by all Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples. The Romans were its especial patrons. Not content with eating it stewed in every form, they fattened it in " cochleariaj* or styes, meal boiled in wine being regarded as the food best fitted for producing large and juicy specimens. How UNAPPRECIATED TRIFLES 149 successful they were, may be inferred from the fact — if fact it be — that some of the shells of these domesticated snails would hold a pint of wine. But the trade in them is per- haps better than ever it was during the palmy days of Roman luxury. In the neighbourhood of Dijon, a small farmer has been known to clear ^300 per annum from snails, the vine growers keeping them in dry cellars, or in trenches under coverings of leaves and earth ; and from certain escargotieres near Ulm, in Wiirtemburg, no fewer than ten millions of the vineyard snails are sent every year to other gardens to be fattened before they are dispatched for the use of the Austrian convents during Lent. From Troyes it has been calculated that snails to the value of ^"20,000 — the wholesale price being 45. per hundred — are forwarded to the Paris markets. Packed in casks, they are also exported in a small way to the United States.'