Meet the Farmer Who Left IBM to Breed Snails in Vienna

From the bistros of Paris to the eating places of Bourgogne and past, escargots are ready, served, and consumed as a quintessential French dish, sometimes smothered, fairly liberally, in savory garlic and herb French butter. Nonetheless, this delicacy of land snails that has grow to be synonymous with the French kitchen could have discovered its reputation by the use of Vienna, the place as we speak, one eccentric snail farmer is resurrecting the culinary glory days of his ancestors.

“In lots of cultures, snails are very, very talked-about,” says Andreas Gugumuck, founding father of Gugumuck Wiener Schnecken Manufaktur. “And my aim was to reintroduce this outdated Viennese custom.”

Are snails the meals of the long run?

Gugumuck grew up on his household’s produce farm in suburban Vienna’s tenth District, however like a lot of his friends, studied laptop science and moved away to town to work an workplace job. Nonetheless, after about six years at IBM, he adopted his pursuits and sought out a craft that differed from the trending however trite early 2000s hobbies of winemaking or brewing small batch craft beer. Studying an article about celebrated Austrian chef Christian Petz, he realized about snails’ significance in Vienna’s culinary previous and got here to the conclusion that the terrestrial gastropod mollusk may really be the protein of the long run — if folks have been able to embrace it.

“Most individuals don’t like snails, however you may have a distinct segment,” he says. “If the remaining say, ‘possibly they’re good,’ however are a little bit bit afraid to style it, however once they style it, find it irresistible, that works.”

Since 2008, the IBM employee-turned-snail farmer has bred snails again on his household farm, the place snail manufacturing is comparatively low upkeep — particularly when in comparison with beef manufacturing. The soil in his snail-raising backyard is already calcium-rich, and the feed is as environmentally pleasant as it’s nurturing. Snails merely feed on natural vegetable meals scraps which creates a byproduct of natural compost, which helps the backyard. The result’s a sustainable meals supply with a comparable quantity of protein to beef, however with far much less sodium, no fats, and a a lot smaller carbon footprint than elevating beef cattle.

The historical past of Viennese snails

Viennese snails, or Wiener Schnecken within the native German language, have been a significant supply of protein within the early Nineteenth century, principally for poor people, simply as they’d been for hundreds of years. The truth is, they date again to the Roman Empire, the place folks throughout the area cultivated snails as a meals supply. Nonetheless, in keeping with Gugumuck, snails had a second of haute delicacies through the Congress of Vienna of 1814–15, when European leaders met in Vienna to prepare territories throughout the continent after the autumn of Napoleon. Vienna’s location between France and Russia was the proper stage for diplomatic relations between the 2 border nations — and Viennese snails performed an element in it.

“The French overseas minister, Monsieur Talleyrand, stayed right here in Vienna, and his chef was the very best chef worldwide,” Gugumuck says, referring to Nineteenth-century French chef Antonin Carême, in his story of how France tried to affect Russian czar Alexander I by way of a meal. “How will you blame a monarch? You serve a monarch with the primary plate, and it’s a poor man’s meals — and he doesn’t know that it is a poor man’s meals. And it was a improbable meal, however it was simply garlic, butter, and parsley. [Alexander] was amazed about this dish. And for the Viennese folks, it was regular.”

Talleyrand’s plan to affect Russia politically through Viennese snails wasn’t profitable, however the outcomes began a broader pattern. “Since this time, it was well-liked in Paris. It began in Vienna after which Paris. [Paris] was the center of the world within the Nineteenth century — about vogue, about meals. And so this meal acquired well-liked worldwide.”

Regardless of the importance of snails in Vienna’s historical past, their consumption diminished over time. By the Eighties, later generations have been far faraway from the times of snails as a meals. Concurrently, wild snails grew to become a protected species by the Austrian authorities, regardless of their dietary worth. Farmed snails have been permissible although, and it wasn’t till Gugumuck’s efforts in 2008 that they began making an actual comeback in Vienna.

His first run was 20,000 farm-bred snails to entice and impress Vienna’s high cooks. Finally, by way of his efforts, extra cooks embraced his product, and as we speak, he and his crew breed and distribute roughly 300,000 snails per yr.

A farmer’s ardour for snails

Gugumuck has such a ardour for snails all through Vienna’s historical past that he’s even performed an element as a snail vendor in Netflix’s Nineteenth-century interval thriller sequence Freud, by which the famed psychoanalyst assists the police in fixing a string of murders. Nonetheless, his ardour goes past the streaming service. In 2014, Gugumuck, together with his personal snails, began a snail-forward Gartenbar on his farm — a restaurant and gathering place for occasions, meals, and maybe a glass of his personal produced wine. 

Right here, Gugumuck educates on the snail because the meals of the long run and showcases its versatility as a protein-rich ingredient. With a impartial style, snails can lean savory or candy relying on the recipe, which is exemplified by dishes like fried snails and chips, smoked snails with babaganoush, snails in a terrine of liver cheese, snail and vegetable flatbread pizza, and candied snails (with easy syrup and spiced rum). They’re additionally served the standard method, however with much less depth than the French, so the snails aren’t utterly masked by herbs, garlic, and butter. Cappuccinos right here will not be infused with snails, however the latte artists could make the picture of a snail with milk foam. 

Gugumuck has come a great distance since his concept of breeding snails got here to him about 20 years in the past, to the snail advocate he’s as we speak. 

“Earlier than, I had snails in my life possibly… two instances,” he recollects about his pre-mollusk days. “[But] I cherished their story.”