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Baked Edible Snails
Work one tablespoonful of chopped parsley into two ounces of butter, and season with one saltspoonful of salt, one-half saltspoonful of pepper, and a small quantity of grated nutmeg. Put a piece of the prepared butter into each of the shells (there should be about twenty-five shells for the above quantity of butter), then put a snail into each of the shells, and another piece of butter on top. Lay the snails close together in a cast iron pan, the mouths of the snails upwards, and not one upon another; cover the pan so as to render it air tight, and put it into a moderate oven. When the parsley begins to look dark, the snails will be sufficiently cooked. Arrange the snails on a hot dish with a folded napkin, leaving them in their shells, and serve as hot as possible.
Edible Snails, Bourgoyne Take some Bourgoyne edible snails, disgorge them with a little salt for two or three days, wash several times in cold water, strain and place them in a stewpan covering them with water. Add a bunch of sweet herbs, some cloves and whole pepper tied in a cloth, and salt to taste; cook until the snails fall from their shells, empty them, clipping off their tails, and cleaning the shells well. Mix together some shallots, parsley and butter, and chervil chopped very fine; put this into a bowl with an equal quantity of sifted breadcrumbs and one wineglassful of white wine, season to taste with pepper and salt, and knead well. Partly fill the shells with this mixture, replace the snails, and complete the filling with more of the kneaded butter; spread breadcrumbs over, and lay them on a baking dish, the opened part on the top. Brown in the oven for four minutes, and serve on a dish with a folded napkin.
Two related preparations: the first bakes snails in plain parsley butter, the second is the fuller Burgundian method with shallots, chervil and breadcrumbs. Both assume you have snails and their shells in hand, which is the part a modern cook has to solve first.
- Snails to buyCanned Burgundy or petit-gris snails, sold with a bag of cleaned shells, replace the whole first half of the second recipe. A standard tin holds a dozen or two dozen; drain and rinse them and go straight to the butter. Do not gather garden snails: wild snails in many regions carry rat lungworm and other parasites, and the two-day salt purge described here is not a substitute for a reliable source.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So the parsley butter takes 2 oz (4 tablespoons) butter, 1 tablespoon parsley, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper and a scrape of nutmeg.
- Moderate ovenRead as roughly 350F. The first recipe gives no time because it gives a visual cue instead — the parsley in the exposed butter darkening — which for a pan of two dozen is likely to be in the region of ten minutes. The second recipe gives no temperature, only four minutes of browning; since the snails are already fully cooked, that implies a hot oven or a broiler rather than a moderate one.
- Keeping the pan airtightThe recipe insists on a cast iron pan with a cover tight enough to be air tight, without saying why; the effect is to hold in steam and keep the butter from cooking away. A heavy skillet with a lid, or a baking dish sealed with foil, does the same. Uncover for the last two minutes if you want colour.
- Keeping them uprightMouths up, packed close, is not fussiness — it is the only thing holding the butter in the shell. A dimpled escargot pan does it best; failing that, a bed of coarse salt or crumpled foil in a gratin dish will hold the shells steady.
- WineglassfulIn this period a wineglass is about 2 fluid ounces (1/4 cup). Knead it into the butter and crumbs gradually or the mixture will break.
- ChervilSold fresh only briefly and rarely; its anise note is part of the classic beurre d'escargot. Substitute a little tarragon plus extra parsley rather than leaving it out entirely.
- Clipping the tailsThe dark coiled end is the hepatopancreas. Canned snails come with it already removed, so this instruction is only relevant if you are starting from live snails.
- YieldTwenty-five shells is four generous first courses or six modest ones. Serve at once; the butter congeals fast, which is why Oscar insists twice on a hot dish.
"Bourgoyne" is Oscar Tschirky's spelling of Bourgogne — Burgundy, whose vineyard snail Helix pomatia gave escargots their classic form, baked back into the shell under garlic-and-parsley butter. The second recipe here looks like what is often described as the Burgundian standard, though Oscar leans on shallot and chervil where later versions load up on garlic. That both versions appear in a Waldorf book of the 1890s says something about the hotel's ambitions: snails were a marker of serious French cookery, unfamiliar enough to American diners that the book has to explain purging and shelling from scratch. Oscar himself was not a chef but the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel, and his cookbook reads like a house reference — the kitchen's working repertoire written down, ambiguities and all.