I grew up in Paignton in South Devon and was always
attracted to the sea, although only occasionally went swimming as I was more
interested in walking along the beach to look at what had been washed up by the
waves and tides. After the severe winter of 1962/63, I remember
that the first storms brought masses of shells ashore, after the very low
temperatures had killed a large number of molluscs (the sea froze in a few
places). Although there were many common cockles, there were also some more
unusual cockle shells, including those of the red-nosed cockle (below, upper) and
the spiny cockle (below, lower). These species made Paignton Beach (shown
above) famous in Victorian times, as their distribution around the coast of
Great Britain is very local, the spiny cockle being largely confined to the
shallow sandy sediments of the western part of Torbay.
Lovell wrote this about the red-nosed cockle (as Cardium rusticum) and spiny cockle (as Cardium aculeatum) in 1867 [1]:
[The red-nosed cockle].. ..is rare
and local in England. It is found on the Devonshire coast, at Paignton, and
occasionally at Dawlish, and at certain times of the year, especially in the
spring after a gale from the east, numbers may be gathered. On paying a visit
to the Paignton sands, for the purpose of shell collecting, in the spring of
1862, the beach was quite strewn with broken single valves of this cockle, and
there had evidently been quantities of live specimens washed up as well, as
we met many persons returning home with their baskets heavily laden with them..
.. There is another cockle found
also at Paignton, which is even more scarce than Cardium rusticum, viz. Cardium aculeatum; it is larger and not
so solid, with long spines on each rib, and is of a pale brownish-pink or flesh
colour. It is very good to eat.
Lovell then describes the “Paignton method of cooking the
red-nosed cockle” by frying them in a batter of breadcrumbs after they have
been kept in clean water for a few hours to remove sand and other unwanted
particles. We’ll come to more recipes later, but first a quote from Philp Henry
Gosse, who lived in Torquay and knew the Torbay coast well. In his book A Year at the Shore (1865) Gosse writes
[2]:
What is that object that lies on
yonder stretch of sand, over which the shallow water ripples, washing the sand
around it and presently leaving it to dry? It looks like a stone; but there is
a fine scarlet knob on it; which all of a sudden has disappeared. Let us watch
the moment of the receding wave, and run out to it.
It is a fine example of the great
spinous cockle, for which all these sandy beaches that form the bottom of the
great sea-bend of Torbay are celebrated. Indeed the species is scarcely known
elsewhere; so that it is often designated in books as the Paignton cockle..
..The creatures have not changed their habits nor their habitats, for they are
still to be seen in the old spots just as they were a century ago: nor have
they lost their reputation; they are indeed promoted to the gratification of
more refined palates now, for the [Paignton] cottagers, knowing on which side
their bread is buttered, collect the sapid cockles for the fashionables of
Torquay, and content themselves with the humbler and smaller species.
For those who do not have access to the red-nosed, or spiny,
cockles that the “fashionables of Torquay” were able to enjoy, the common
cockle (Cardium edule) is still excellent
to eat. They can be obtained from cockle “fisheries” in several estuaries,
among the best being those from Penclawdd in Wales, where the shellfish are
collected using hand rakes, rather than by more aggressive approaches. Cockles
are gathered into sieves, washed to clean as much mud as possible from the
shells, and then tipped into sacks for easy transport. There is much less occasional
foraging than in Victorian times, although John Wright encourages us in his
book Edible Seashore [3], in which he describes many edible plants and animals from both the landward and seaward
parts of the shore. He recommends that cockles should not be collected during the
summer months as this is when they spawn, but they are at their best through September
and October.
Wright gives an excellent recipe for cooking cockles with
chorizo, although they can be cooked using many of the recipes for clams [3]. Cockles
with chorizo is easy to prepare: make sure that the cockles have had a chance
to “clean themselves” in sea water overnight and then add them to a pot in
which small pieces of chorizo have been sautéed to release their oil, with the
addition of a little olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. Cover and cook
until the shells open, garnish with parsley and then serve like mussels, with
crusty bread to mop up the juices. If you are interested, further recipes are
given below [4,5].
Should there be an excess of cleaned cockles, they can be prepared
by placing them in a hot pan and then teasing the cockles away from their shells
and placing them in a jar with just enough malt vinegar to cover. Pickled
cockles will keep much longer than fresh cockles and they make a delightful
snack at any dinner party (but make sure that they have had a chance to clean
themselves of sand and silt…).
Do any readers out there, and especially those from Paignton, want to collect and cook cockles, or are you somehow put off by the thought?
[1] M. S. Lovell (1867) The
Edible Mollusks of Great Britain and Ireland with recipes for cooking them.
London, Reeve & Co.
[2] Philip Henry Gosse (1865) A Year at the Shore. London, Alexander Strahan.
[3] John Wright (2009) Edible
Seashore: River Cottage Handbook No.5. London, Bloomsbury Publishing.
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