Dad was born in 1929. The Great Depression hit right around that time. If it could be caught, they’d stick it into a pot. If it grew in a garden (or country ditch or anywhere and anything that was green) they’d throw that into the pot,
Story about snails being a gourmet item?
During random (and common famines) back in the day in France (the Middle Ages)...
The Royal family even was reduced to eating anything they could find, to stay alive...
They once had to resort to snails, as the only food at the time that could be scrounged up...
When times got good again, the Royals did not want to be regarded as EVER having been desperate...
So snails were served up, as a special "delicacy" (smoother ANYTHING in enough butter, and it becomes fairly palatable).
*Our Mom was a WWII War Bride (our Dad romanced her, after the war, away from her home in Paris). She was the one that told us all that story.
Apparently it's something she was told as part of growing up in France.