Escargot

One of the most famous dishes in French cuisine is escargot, a preparation of snails that can be served with a variety of sauces. Escargots are usually served as a starter. While people who are not from France think that the word refers to a specific dish, in fact it is a generic term for edible snails. The most common preparation is boiling or steaming, and the snails are often served in the shell on a special plate that has small depressions for each shell. Diners use tongs to extract the flesh from the shell, along with small two-tined snail forks, and then dip the snail into the sauce provided. A garlic and butter sauce is the most common, but wine sauces and others are not unusual.