Maybe it’s a bit premature to talk about and especially to understand what implications may have in the future this delicacy that begins to circulate on Italian tables.

Innovation in the kitchen is continuous and the Italian food and wine are always there to do their part. So, citing Coldiretti, it turns out that “Among the many new features of last year, surprising is the new entrepreneurial experience by Davide Merlino and Michelangelo Sansone that gave birth in Campofelice di Roccella, in Palermo, to the largest breeding snails of Italy, ‘the snail Madonita’ which produce a highly prized caviar, certainly the ‘slow’ in the world, much sought by the international gourmets”.

After the delicious sturgeon caviar and its substitutes much less valuable (salmon and lumpfish), it is coming to the fore the snail caviar. In fact the production is very limited and between countries that produce over Italy there are France and Poland. A snail produce eggs only once a year and the average amount is about 4 grams. These factors determine the selling price of these eggs that is around 2000/2500 euro per kilo.

In France, the homeland of escargot the snail caviar has been produced for several years and the few who can afford it speak of it as a product adorable.

Thanks to the start of the new farm in Sicily, this rarity could become a special ingredient of the Italian haute cuisine.

There is already an ongoing collaboration between Giovanni Guarnieri, chef of the restaurant Don Camillo in Syracuse and the breeding of Merlino and Sansone in order to concentrate efforts to make this product an excellence of Italian cuisine.

It is first of all to understand how to optimize the production and increase the number of farms and at the same time studying the uses in the kitchen in a growing number of dishes.

It is a product with a mineral and herbaceous tasty, extremely delicate, completely new and very interesting.

A very creamy texture, able to give a touch of luxury to different preparations. It comes in the appearance of small white pearl balls slightly larger than the sturgeon caviar. There are however also of pink color.

It is an excellent ingredient to finish tuna dishes, adding freshness and a delicate earthy flavor.

Other intriguing pairings it is customary to make them with the watermelon soup, with spinach and with bitter chocolate mousse. But this product from its best even on a simple toasted buttered bread.

Product is still difficult to find in Italy but is on sale at Harrods in London, and the Grande Epicerie Hediard in Paris, House of Caviar and Fine Food in the Netherlands, the Bocherie du Lumiard and the Plantin in the United States.

Source: cucinaconoi.it