Editing Snail (section)

===Culinary use===
{{Main article|Snails as food}}

[[File:Cooked snails.JPG|thumb|right|[[Escargot|French cooked snails]]]]
In [[French cuisine]], edible snails are served for instance in ''[[Escargot]] à la [[Burgundy|Bourguignonne]]''. The practice of rearing snails for food is known as [[heliciculture]]. For purposes of cultivation, the snails are kept in a dark place in a wired cage with dry straw or dry wood. [[Coppiced]] wine-grape vines are often used for this purpose. During the rainy period, the snails come out of [[Land snail#Hibernation and estivation|hibernation]] and release most of their mucus onto the dry wood/straw. The snails are then prepared for cooking. Their texture when cooked is slightly chewy and tender.

As well as being eaten as gourmet food, several species of land snails provide an easily harvested source of [[Protein (nutrient)|protein]] to many people in poor communities around the world. Many land snails are valuable because they can feed on a wide range of agricultural wastes, such as shed leaves in [[banana plantations]]. In some countries, [[giant African land snail]]s are produced commercially for food.

Land snails, freshwater snails and sea snails are all eaten in many countries. In certain parts of the world snails are fried. For example, in [[Indonesia]], they are fried as [[satay]], a dish known as ''[[sate kakul]]''. The eggs of certain snail species are eaten in a fashion similar to the way [[caviar]] is eaten.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-snails-idUSL2055417620071220 | title=The height of slow-food, France serves snail caviar | newspaper=Reuters | date=20 December 2007 }}</ref>

In [[Bulgaria]], snails are traditionally cooked in an oven with rice or fried in a pan with vegetable oil and red paprika powder. Before they are used for those dishes, however, they are thoroughly boiled in hot water (for up to 90 minutes) and manually extracted from their shells. The two species most commonly used for food in the country are ''[[Helix lucorum]]'' and ''[[Helix pomatia]]''.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}}

Snails and slug species that are not normally eaten in certain areas have occasionally been used as [[famine food]] in historical times. A history of Scotland written in the 1800s recounts a description of various snails and their use as food items in times of plague.<ref>{{cite book |last=Chambers |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Chambers (publisher born 1802) |year=1858|title=Domestic annals of Scotland, from the reformation to the revolution |publisher=[[Chambers Harrap|W. & R. Chambers]] |url=https://archive.org/details/domesticannalsof02chamiala}} (Also quoted [http://www.electricscotland.com/history/domestic/vol2ch2c.htm here].</ref>