A snail from Andreas Gugumuck’s farm on June 18, 2022 in Vienna, Austria (AFP / Alex HALADA)
From a joke at first, snail farming has become a very serious business for Andreas Gugumuck, a Viennese farmer proud to update a popular tradition under the Habsburg Empire.
“Wiener Schnecken”: in his farm on the outskirts of Vienna, he now raises 300,000 gastropod molluscs a year, which can be enjoyed in his adjacent restaurant with inventive recipes.
“I grew up in this old farm, my family has lived there for 300 years,” he told AFP, an unchanging beret on his head, a T-shirt adorned with a shell and a sign of the horns. .
Then a computer scientist, he read an article one day about a renowned chef from Vienna offering the dish on his menu and decided to embark on the adventure “for fun”.
Farmer Andreas Gugumuck observes snails from his “Wiener Schnecken” farm on June 18, 2022 in Vienna, Austria (AFP/Alex HALADA)
It was 12 years ago and Andreas Gugumuck quickly got caught up in the game: he did some research and discovered that if France is the undisputed country of snails, Vienna was once “the real capital”.
In this very Catholic country, the Austrians used to replace the prohibited meat during Lent and other religious holidays with the small animal with tentacles, he explains. Before over the years, the tradition falls into oblivion.
– “Food of the future” –
In his defense of Austrian culinary heritage, this dynamic 48-year-old Viennese initially encountered reluctance in the face of this little-known and unsavory food for some.
Farmer Andreas Gugumuck at his “Wiener Schnecken” farm on June 18, 2022 in Vienna, Austria (AFP/Alex HALADA)
To attract the public and encourage vocations, it has organized seminars, festivals, events… and other “smaller” heliciculture projects have since been set up.
Today his restaurant, which offers a seven-course menu, is “full eight weeks in advance”, he slips under the portrait of his great-grandparents who welcomes visitors.
Snails from Burgundy, Petit-gris or Gros-Gris: Andreas Gugumuck pampers the three species, sheltered under planks in the middle of abundant vegetation.
Farmer Andreas Gugumuck feeds his snails at his “Wiener Schnecken” farm on June 18, 2022 in Vienna, Austria (AFP/Alex HALADA)
It is a “food of the future”, he boasts, because “it requires very little food (cereals and calcium), water and soil”.
Without forgetting that from the fields to the plate, there is only one step: the mollusc is transformed directly on the spot or delivered to top-of-the-range Austrian restaurants, details this amateur boxer who also boasts of its high protein intake.
Nestled in a sausage, embellishing a cocktail or in a “snail and chips” formula, the snail is available here in all forms, far from the traditional garlic and parsley dish.
Farmer Andreas Gugumuck arranges his snails in a basket on June 18, 2022 in Vienna, Austria (AFP/Alex HALADA)
Among the customers, Patrick Filzmaier, who came to attend a tasting on Saturday in the presence of young Viennese winegrowers to the sound of electro music, is won over.
This 33-year-old bank employee likes the “different taste, reminiscent of a bit of a nut, a bit of a pastry, a bit of meat”.
“It’s small but it fills you up,” he sums up.
© 2022 AFP
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