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220 HELIX POMATIA. 
This taste is said to be also a growing one in England, a restaurateur in 
Soho, London, estimating that 100, 000 snails, mainly obtained from France, 
are consumed in London every year from October to Easter, and the fashion 
is spreading to the provinces, where 7. pomatia if not everywhere actually 
kept on sale, is imported for such patrons as desire them. 
Mr. Kenneth McKean, who for a lengthened period resided in Surrey, 
often gathered a basketful for home consumption, and assures me that they 
are a really excellent food. 
In the New World this species 1s more or less regularly imported into 
New York, San Francisco, and other places in North and South America 
to supply oe tastes of those who desire it for food. 
For Culinary purposes hybernating specimens with the epiphragm intact 
are most suitable, and there are many different modes of preparing them 
for the table, but they are said to be usually boiled, extracted from the 
shells, seasoned with parsley, butter, and other piquant seasoning, and 
replaced in the shells, from which they are eaten. 
Other methods are by boiling them in water, they are then taken from 
the shell and stewed in a saucepan ae fresh butter and parsley, or the 
animal when removed from the shell is three-parts cooked and put in a 
saucepan with a little water and some es or alternatively some broth 
may be added with a little salt, white wine and vinegar. When cooked 
quite tender, pour over them a thickening of yoke of egg with chopped 
parsley, adding nutmeg and Jemon juice to make the seasoning more savoury. 
When snails are used which have been gathered during their active 
suminer life, it is always desirable to put them aside and deprive them of 
food for a few days; they should then be placed in a bowl with a handful 
of bran and a little vinegar to get rid of the slime, and may then be 
prepared if desired in the Bureundy fashion, by washing in several waters 
and then placing in a covered saucepan in cold water with a handful of 
salt. a bunch of fennel and two bay leaves, and cooking gently for five or 
six hours ; then remove the shell, eviscerate the animal, and again wash 
in cold water. Pound up two or three anchovies to a paste, adding four 
ounces of fresh butter, a few sprigs of parsley, six shallots, and two cloves 
of garlic, with a pinch each of salt and white pepper, and two pinches of 
cayenne, then add a little good veal gravy, and mix thoroughly. 
Put a little of this forcemeat into each shell, replace the snail, pour 
over it a little butter, lay carefully on a tin, bake for eight to ten minutes 
in a hot oven, and serve very hot. 
Medicinally, Helix pomatia has been held in Ingh estimation for the 
treatment of consumption and various pulmonary disorders, and Lovell 
teeve in his “ British Land and Freshwater Shells” gives details of the 
radical cure of an individual when in the last stages of consumption by 
the administration of the’ expressed mucilaginous juice of this snail in 
jellies and conserves, in gravies, and with entreméts of meats. 
Even in Martin Lister’s time, //. pomatia had long been considered as 
restorative in hectic fever cases. 
Among the minor uses to which this species may be put, it may be 
inentioned that in the Vosges, France, the animal is used as bait for eel 
fishing, and the shell serves as a trap for earwigs, while the slimy matter 
left in the shell when the animal is extracted, if mixed with quicklime, 
makes an excellent cement which is impervious to the action of both 
heat and humidity. 
