during a winter night The species is known as an agricultural and garden pest, an edible delicacy, and occasionally a household
pet. In
French cuisine, it is known as
petit gris, and is served in dishes such as
Escargot a la
Bordelaise. Also in
Lleida, a city of
Catalonia (
Spain), there is a gastronomic festival called
L'Aplec del Caragol dedicated to this type of snail, known as
bover, which attracts over 200,000 guests every year. In Crete, there is a dish called "chochloi mpoumpouristoi" (snails turned upside down), where the snails are cooked alive in a hot pan on a thick layer of sea salt.
Other dishes with garden snails include snails with rosemary and snail soup. 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 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.
Approaches to snail pest control There are a variety of snail-control measures that gardeners and farmers use in an attempt to reduce damage to valuable plants. Traditional pesticides are still used, as are many less toxic control options such as concentrated
garlic or
wormwood solutions.
Copper metal is also a snail repellent, and thus a copper band around the trunk of a tree will prevent snails from climbing up and reaching the foliage and fruit.
Caffeine has proven surprisingly toxic to snails, to the extent that spent coffee grounds (not decaffeinated) make a safe and immediately effective snail-repellant and even
molluscicidal mulch for pot-plants, or for wherever else the supply is adequate. The
decollate snail (
Rumina decollata) will capture and eat garden snails, and because of this it has sometimes been introduced as a
biological pest control agent. However, this is not without problems, as the decollate snail is just as likely to attack and devour other species of gastropods that may represent a valuable part of the native fauna of the region.
Pharmacological studies Cornu aspersum has gained some popularity as the chief ingredient in skin creams and gels (crema/gel de caracol) sold in the US. These creams are promoted as being suitable for use on wrinkles, scars, dry skin, and acne to reduce pigmentation, scarring, and wrinkles. Secretions of
Cornu aspersum produced under stress have skin-regenerative properties because of antioxidant
superoxide dismutase and
glutathione S-transferase (GSTs) activities. The secretions can stimulate
fibroblast proliferation and rearrange the actin
cytoskeleton stimulate extracellular matrix assembly and regulation of
metalloproteinase activities for regeneration of wounded tissue. The mucus of
Cornu aspersum contains a rich source of substances that can be used to treat biotic human diseases. Nine fractions of compounds with varying molecular weight were purified from the mucus and was tested against gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial strains. Results found three fractions exhibited predominant antibacterial activity against the gram-positive strain. While further confirmatory research is still needed, potential benefits of the snail extracts or secretion filtrates have been also demonstrated in other disease models in mice, including protective effects against ethanol-induced gastric ulcer and against the progression of Alzheimer's type dementia.
Pets In some countries,
Cornu aspersum snails are sometimes raised as pets, mostly by children. In
Israel, which has a semi-dry climate,
Cornu aspersum snails are mostly limited to human-populated areas such as cities, villages, and gardens, and therefore are less of a threat to local snail species or agriculture. and are very popular among Israeli children. Because of this, they are often used by educators, teachers, and naturalists to educate children about
natural history. == See also ==