At last, we've a taste for snails Harris serves them in their shells à la bourguignonne, with garlic, parsley and pastis on old, heavy, enamelled iron dishes. "No other dish will hold the heat so well as it goes to the table," he says. Harris believes that the traditional dislike of snails stems from wartime rationing. "So much of our attitude to eating such things comes from our parents, who rebelled having eaten a lot of wild food during the war," he says. A good snail has a silky earthiness, but it is the butter and garlic that most people like. And they are nourishing - a one-ounce snail contains 100 calories. The enthusiastic forager of the non-protected, common "grey" snails may get put off at the preparation stage: they must be starved in a container for 10 days to remove poisonous plant remnants from their bodies. Be sure to place a brick on top - hungry snails can lift a lid. Next, they need soaking for hours, washing several times to remove slime, then blanching, picking from shells, trimming and boiling again for two hours in a well-flavoured bouillon. The shells must also be sterilised, by scrubbing and then boiling. Procuring snails is a drama, however you look at it, and Harris recommends simply buying them ready-prepared. Heliciculture, the process of raising snails for human consumption, has returned to England and there are two farms that supply live and prepared produce: South West Snails in Devon and L'escargot Anglais near Hereford. When I visited the latter, Tony Vaughan was rearing thousands of fast-growing creatures in a hut, feeding them herbs. Entering, I sensed a mass of silent movement. "It is not intensive, a snail must travel unimpeded or it will not grow," said Vaughan. He supplies many chefs, including Heston Blumenthal, who made headlines with his snail porridge. There is little not to like about a snail on a plate. But a pilfered Roman snail is not a dish to enjoy. While we learn to love their farmed cousins, these must remain off the menu.