snail caviar

Snail farming may be taking off in Australia because now, as well as eating the snail (as escargot) we can eat the eggs of the snail as snail caviar.  Forget the roe of the sturgeon which is hideously expensive and, given the declining numbers of sturgeons caught to provide the roe, causes us to worry about their future as we eat. 

There are plenty of snails.  However, each snail lays roughly 100 eggs in a year, so production is not happening at high speed.  The end result of this is that a very small bottle of eggs can cost $250 dollars.  On top of that the taste is mild, so mild that it needs to be pepped up with added brine and maybe a teensy added flavour and combined with foods that are bland, like a mousse.

So now the farmer can reap the profits from selling the snails, and their carefully collected eggs, and their mucin which can be used in pharmaceutical products.  See snail mucin in New Words December 2023.