Or see L'Escargot. Escargot is a dish of cooked land snails, usually served as an appetizer in France and in French restaurants. The word is also sometimes applied to the living snails of those species which are commonly eaten in this way. Escargot,, is the French word for snail. It is related to Occitan escaragol and Catalan cargol, which, in turn, may derive from a pre-Roman word *karakauseli. Similarly, Spanish and Portuguese use the term caracol.