French Lessons

Opportunistic or misguided can be words which can readily apply in the business world where a scheme could as easily lead to a fortune as cause ruin and misery.

I know from personal experience all about this although I was, I admit only 10 years old but convinced that my fame and wealth would be in maggot farming. I seem to remember that this rather strange ambition was borne out of my shortage of pocket money with which to purchase a pint, or more realistically half a pint or a beaker full of maggots for fishing. Why not, I thought, grow some for my own use and have plenty to sell wholesale to the angling shop or to my friends.

The actual process behind my master plan was, upon actual research, unpleasant involving animal hearts, bran buckets and clouds of egg laying flies. I made a decision not to go ahead on very convincing business grounds or rather my Mother found out and banned me from having anything more to do with that aspect of agriculture.

The same sort of initial enthusiasm but quick to evaporate was evident today in a suburb of my home city.

A large polythene tunnel, often seen covering acre upon acre of horticultural fields and housing everything from broccoli to soft fruits, was unceremoniously wedged at an angle in the only slightly larger back garden of a semi detached house.

It was quite a landmark in the street being visible from many of the neighbouring and surrounding residencies so not intended to cultivate an illegal cash crop.

I was disappointed, on lifting back the tunnel flaps, to see that it was in fact empty of anything alive but had clearly and until recently served as the safe and cosy environment for some organism.

The occupier noticed my vacant expression on discovering the vacant under cover area and felt that he had to explain what had gone on in there.

He and a French friend had taken to heart part of a speech by the Mayor of London, the eccentric Boris Johnson in 2015 on the occasion of a meeting with Alain Juppe, onetime Prime Minister of France, then Mayor of Bordeaux.

Juppe, perhaps feeling a bit overwhelmed by the size of Johnson's London catchment commented that his Atlantic Coast city environ with a population of just under 240,000 was the ninth biggest in his country. On the basis that, to Johnson's understanding, London was home to around a quarter of a million French Nationals he retorted that he was therefore an elected leader of the sixth biggest French city on earth.

That Boris, love him or loathe him, he just loves a moment, or a lifetime of oneupmanship in the media spotlight.

This fact, one of great contention does actually range from 66,000 documented French passport holders in London (Source; UK Office of National Statistics)  to 86,000 (2011 UK Census) around 300,000 according to the French Consulate and home grown British estimates of upwards of 400,000, had made the house occupier and his Gallic acquaintance think.

If there was indeed a sizeable resident population from across the Channel then perhaps a sympathetically French venture could tap into the market and earn them a tidy income.

If you consider stereotypical aspects of Franco-culture against my observations of the poly-tunnel then you would expect it to have been used to cultivate what?,
Garlic,
truffles,
aniseed,
pomegranates, or
olives?

The business idea planned and enacted by the likely pair was snail farming or as it is known Heliculture.

To those already involved in this pursuit which has seen UK production expand from 30,000 snails in the year 2000 to around three quarters of a million currently it is seen as perhaps one of the easiest forms of farming.

It takes up very little space with a concentration of 200 snails per square square metre in the breeding stage and 300 in the same area when being "fattened" for eating. This has prompted a few Heliculturalists to begin in the modest surroundings of a back garden only serving to encourage my host.

Start up costs are modest and snails just get on with breeding and growing with little interference.

A popular breed is Helix aspersa, a fast growing garden species related to the common garden snail. From eggs they morph into tiny snails called hatchlings before developing on a diet of natural vegetation and water spray delivered feed. A free range option has its benefits for welfare and health although within the cocoon of the poly tunnel the snails occupied crates and pens under temperature controlled conditions.The life cycle from hatch to harvest takes around 16 weeks making it possible to have 3 crops every year.

In readiness for the dining table the snails are purged through starvation as an extreme method or more humanely placed in bran for a week or fed with milk.

Snails have been elevated to gourmet status in popular French culture although do have proven nutritional benefits in being fat free, high in vitamins A,C and D and amino acids.

The product range of some of the larger UK farms includes live, blanched out of their shells, fully cooked braised, garlic dressed shelled, oven ready , in a herb and wine sauce and snail caviar.

It appears the Heliculture Partnership in my local area soon foundered through over-optimistic expectations of demand, a poor supply chain network (one of the two entrepreneurs only had an unreliable old van), a low volume of production so as to make uneconomic and when it came down to it, no real appetite within 100 miles of the polythene tent for this gastronomic treat.

Well, what did you expect in Yorkshire?