Who were the first people to eat snails? “Surely the French,” you might surmise, given the historical importance of escargots in French cuisine. But a recent paper in Quaternary Science Reviews indicates that cooked snails have been on the southern African menu for 70,000 years or more.
“The dominant view has been that the consumption of small game (birds, fish, reptiles, land snails) increased at the end of the Ice Age, about 11,500 years ago, as a consequence of the disappearance of large herds of herbivores,” Dr. Lucinda Backwell—who co-authored the paper with Drs. Marine Wojcieszak, Francesco d’Errico and Lyn Wadley—told Wine Spectator via email. “Our results show that this is probably a simplistic view, and that the consumption of certain species preceded this late adaptation.”
The team studied snail shell fragments found at Border Cave, a cliffside excavation site on the border of KwaZulu-Natal (a province of South Africa) and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). The shells are from the Achatinidae family of snails, a medium- to large-sized bunch. But could these mollusks have just crawled into Border Cave and died? Not likely. The shell fragments came in a variety of colors (grays, browns and beiges), suggesting the shells were cooked.
To confirm that point, the researchers heated fresh shell samples from brown-lipped agate snails (Metachatina kraussiin, for all you malacologists) in a furnace at 392° to 1,022° F. The sample shells did, indeed, change color like those found at Border Cave; they also lost a bit of weight and shattered. After further testing confirmed that those samples and the Border Cave shells appeared similar on a micro level, only one likely explanation remained: Homo sapiens brought land snails to Border Cave and cooked them there.
But why snails? Well, land mollusks offer plenty of nutrients, aren’t difficult or dangerous to gather, can be stored for a while, are easy to cook and easy to digest (after being cooked). “Sharing food among the group provides insights into the emergence of early human behavior, showing that hunters and gatherers provisioned those unable to forage for themselves,” said Backwell. “The easy-to-eat fatty protein of snails would have been an important food source for people like the elderly and small children.”
Unfortunately, we don't know the first beverage pairing with escargots. But we do know the accompaniments: Earlier research found evidence of rhizomes (underground plant stems, like those harvested for wasabi and turmeric) and the flower-producing hypoxis plant at the cave. “[This] sharing of food shows that cooperative social behavior was in place from the dawn of our species, and did not emerge later,” Backwell observed. “Altruism was, and still is, fundamental to the survival and well-being of human individuals and groups.”
While it does significantly change our impression of ancient cuisine, this evidence is likely a sign of “sporadic” snail eating, rather than “habitual” consumption, which came thousands of years later. When did someone first add herb butter and garlic, and maybe a few croutons and a Chardonnay pairing? We can only hope that future research is able to catch up with the snails of the Stone Age.
Enjoy Unfiltered? The best of Unfiltered's round-up of drinks in pop culture can now be delivered straight to your inbox every other week! Sign up now to receive the Unfiltered e-mail newsletter, featuring the latest scoop on how wine intersects with film, TV, music, sports, politics and more.
