Farmer takes on Gallic gangs and Japanese desk jockeys to raise succulent snails

[Anchorman]

Toshihide Takase, a gruff farmer from Matsuzaka, Mie Prefecture, has laid claim to being the world's only successful snail breeder, according to Weekly Playboy (6/18).

Takase, 60, was prompted to go into snail farming after his daughter brought back a souvenir package of escargot from a trip to France and he was smitten by the beautiful shells.

"I'd always been into bug-catching as a little kid, so there was no way the escargot were going to get past me. I thought if I could make them taste good for the Japanese, I could probably make some business out of 'em," he tells Weekly Playboy. "I went off to France to find out what I could about Bourgogne snails, because they're the best ones used in French cuisine, but found out that over-harvesting and environmental destruction meant they were on the verge of extinction. It's hard raising Bourgogne snails and there wasn't anyone else in the world doing it as a business. So I figured it was up to me."

Takase came up with plenty of obstacles in his efforts to become a snail breeder.

"First was France. Over there, the harvesting and trade in Bourgogne snails is almost all run by organized crime. I was going to let that beat me, though. I've done plenty of business with yakuza types in the past. I turned the bad situation in my favor, made friends with a crime boss and got him to show me a few areas where they were cultivating snails, so I could study up on them. Then I also brought home a big bag of soil from Bourgogne just like the kids do when they play in the National High School Baseball Tournament at Koshien," Takase says, adding that it had become rare in France to eat Bourgogne snails, which had been replaced by cheaper, less tasty brown garden snails.

Takase analyzed the soil he brought back to get it just right for breeding in Japan. He started with 37 snails and within a few years had expanded that to around 1,000. "The next problem was Japan, which under the Plant Protection Law, regards escargot as noxious pests. You needed a special government permit just to be able to raise them," he says.

Takase began lobbying the government on behalf of Bourgogne snails and, though it took him seven years, finally had them exempted from the law. He then set up a snail farm and began selling escargot. He now sells snails for eating across Japan, including to some of the country's top hotels and restaurants and its best-known chefs.

"Nearly all of the orders I get come from French chefs who've never tasted what a real escargot should taste like," Takase tells Weekly Playboy. "They all come to me to learn about snail raising."

Apart from his snail cultivation, Takase also runs an escargot restaurant and gives chefs classes on the best way to cook snails. He sees a bright future in snail raising.

"I want to boost the scale of snail cultivating and save the world. There's no food as rich in vitamins and calcium as escargot. And where it takes two to three years to raise snails in the wild, I can do it in 120 days. And I get 50 to 60 eggs with each batch. My cultivated escargot are ready for eating any time and can be used to feed the starving children all around the world," Takase tells Weekly Playboy. "Me and me right arm, that's the missus, know all about the soil, fertilizer and raising methods of snails, but we're ready to do our bit for the world. But we'll only show it to people prepared to put in the effort. We won't do it for free." (By Ryann Connell)