Tuesday night's heavy rain in the eastern part of the country caused one person to leap up suddenly from the TV: "Hell, that will bring out the snails in battalions. And slugs." He was right. The table outside, on which most of his herbs stand in pots, was alive with them. Even the peppery woodruff and the onion chives had, their quota, to say nothing of the more tender plants. More, a spiny kermes oak of minute proportions had an obscenely big hanging slob.
Only those plants escaped where the surface of the earth in the pot was well covered with good, sharp sand. The best protection. Poison of any kind is doubtful, at least. For next morning early, a pair of nest blackbirds were seen having the time of their lives with the late arrivals. You don't want to take a risk with their lives or that of their nestlings (yes, scaldies). Long ago, soot used to be recommended as protection from snails, but not everyone has a fire these days. Anyway, real sharp sand - and you ask for it as just that, sharp sand does work.
It was interesting in France a few years ago when sudden, heavy rain broke a dry spell. This was in Catalan country, in the south west. Promptly, half the neighbours were out with their plastic bags, bending over the grass, the plants, the shrubs in a little plantation. To and fro. To and fro. The snails were, of course, for eating. Now, in Elizabeth David's well known French Provincial Cooking, she quotes instructions for the culinary preparation of snails by Madame Millet Robinet, in a mid 19th century book.
It involves leaving the snails to starve for at least one month in case they have fed on anything noxious. This in a vessel left in a cool, but not damp, place. Then you boil them for 20 minutes, take them out of their shells, remove the little intestine (how do you recognise it?), wash again more than once, and put in a saucepan with butter . . . you don't want anymore. And these good Catalan people out with their bags were unlikely to be going through any such routine.
One of their most famous dishes is the cargolade snails roasted, sometimes in their hundreds, on a wire mesh netting over a fire, preferably of vine cuttings. Can't see them waiting for a month. According to the French, il faut souffrir pour etre belle. You have to suffer to be beautiful. And to suffer, sometimes, for gastronomic indulgence.
If you eat oysters or other shell fish regularly, you'll hardly escape the odd stomach eruption. And many French people don't expect to. On the others hand, you can be sure that any snails on offer in an Irish restaurant have been through the correct procedures.