Yesterday I found myself half-watching the France-Switzerland game in a hotel bar over a few drinks. On the menu of this rather up-market place I found "Devon farmed snails on toast with young vegetables and herb butter". Now aside form the fact that I was there with a friend who gets sick every time he attempts to eat butter, and never has eaten a snail in his entire life, what really bugged me was how Devon farmed snails are different from e.g. French snails, Hertfordshire snails or Scally snails? Is the texture different? The slime? I did taste a snail once in a French restaurant, which sort of makes you assume it was a French snail: it tasted rather like rubber. With the difference in climate it would make sense for French snails to be a bit drier, and British snails a bit more moist - or shall we say succulent? After all, if French philosopher Montesquieu thought the difference in climate made the Northern Europeans brave and energetic and the Southern Europeans lazy and sensual, it would only be logical if climate didn't also impact on the physique of a snail. Could anyone enlighten me here? I don't think it likely that I'll be tempted to taste any more snails in this lifetime, so won't undertake any empirical surveys, but I would really like to know....