THE VARIED ROLES OF SNAILS - National Universities Commission

acteriological culture plates. As far back as 1944, a
nutritionist known as Aguayo asked people to return to the
consumption of snails. In the United States of America,
records show that Helix pisana (Theba) were being sent
from Sicily for consumption and a report from the U.S.
Bureau of Entomology and plant Quarantine revealed that
about 721 cases and 24, 969 baskets of living snails were
once imported into New York between May, 1947 and
April, 1948 (Mead, 1951).
Further reports suggested that for a number of years, almost
exactly one million pounds of snails were imported
annually into the U.S.A. just from Morocco (Heifer, 1949).
With approximately fifty snails to the pound the total
number of snails would be close to 50 million or in linear
measurement, close to a thousand miles of snails placed
head to tail.
Who would have guessed that such an appetite for snails
existed just in U.S.A. Human use of land snails as food
ranges from Native Americans consumption of Oreohelix
sp in the Western States to fine dining escargots (Helix spp)
in urban areas. For France (another country where snails
are avidly consumed) the amount of snails eaten surpass the
U.S. figures by about fifteen times or greater.
In West Africa, especially in Ghana, various species of
snails especially the Tiger snails are eaten. There the snails
actually form the largest single item of animal protein in
the diet of the common people. It was in that country that
people can eat snails after boiling in water or on hot coals,
removing the shell, freed of the soft visceral mass,
chopped, and combined with starchy dishes such as cassava
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