Could snail eating return to Somerset?

Phil has made an astonishing discovery - it's not just the French who are prone to scoffing snails! He's discovered snail eating was quite popular in Somerset in the 1960s. But do we still have an appetite to munch a mollusc?

Records of snail eating in Somerset date back more than a hundred years. In fact, there are even stories of the Romans eating them here.

But it was Paul Leyton, a former rocket engineer, who popularised them in the 1960s. His restaurant received widespread coverage from newspaper food writers eager to try the Somerset delicacy, including a young Delia Smith. In fact the Leyton's dish of "Mendip Wallfish" became so popular that they tried freezing them and canning them.

Former restaurateur Bob Reynolds used to cook about 4,000 snails a year at the Miners' Arms in Priddy. But when the restaurant closed down eight years ago, the dish disappeared from the dinner table with it.

Unlike the French recipe for snails, there is no garlic in the Somerset version. The butter is flavoured only with herbs and seasoning. So do we still have the sails today?

Inside Out West assembled a tasting panel of experts from local restaurants to find out. All of the panel pride themselves on serving local food in their restaurants. But none of them have ever tried Mendip Wallfish. So what's their verdict?