Escargot Goes Eggy

Getting most people to eat snails is hard enough, but how about snail eggs? Snail's egg caviar is now being sold by a couple of French snail farmers from Soissons, which is located in the Picardie region northeast of Paris. Dominique and Sylvie Pierru are French entrepreneurs who own a snail farm and spent the last three years learning how to harvest the eggs from their 50,000 gasteropods and developing a method of processing and tenderizing the eggs. The caviar from snails is small and cream colored with a woodsy taste.

The Pierrus have already sold 400 jars of the caviar which sells for around $115 per 50 grams, which is not much different than the cost of sturgeon egg caviar. The caviar, which is unpasteurized, lasts for three months. Everything from the harvesting to the cleaning and sorting is done by hand which also contributes to the price.