Fast food for monks

Barra snails.

It’s Burns’ night, and as we reflect on the Bard over a plate of haggis, neeps and tatties or a wee dram, it occurs to me that snails are probably not what comes to mind when folk think of Scottish produce. I am certainly not aware of Burns lauding the qualities of snails in any of his works. It falls to me to bring them to the table – so to speak.

Apparently monks took snails to Barra. Snails were not regarded as meat and so could be eaten on fast days. They were an easily stored source of fresh protein through windy winter months. The tradition of eating snails did not out-live the monks, and there is no tradition of eating snails on Barra today.

These days snails do well on Barra, the sandy soil has all the calcium they need and in summer, the abundant herbs and grasses provide the nutrition. 

I moved to the family croft in Eoligarry in 2005 and found myself surrounded by snails, but without a market in which to sell them.

A friend who had eaten at l’escargot bleu suggested I got in touch with Fred. Et voila! Problem solved. Fred came to see the snails in their natural habitat and we have been supplying l’escargot ever since. We now have a small list of restaurants we supply, but l’escargot remains top of our list.

In common with many crofters, there needs to be more than one string to our bow, so we also farm oysters, a few cattle, twenty or so hens and we attempt to grow some plants in our garden. To date, this latter project has been a bit of a flop, as most of what we grow is stolen from under our noses, by pesky snails!

Gerard MacDonald of Isle of Barra Oysters