Cockle

Coque

What it is

Cockle shells fill Mesolithic middens along every Atlantic coast, raked and hand-gathered from the same sandflats long before anyone wrote the practice down. The English phrase about warming the cockles of your heart is usually traced to the shell’s shape, though the etymology is disputed and may be nothing more than a pun on the Latin for the heart’s ventricles.

In the kitchen

They live in sand and they carry it: purge them at least four hours in cold water salted to 35 g per litre, changing the water twice. Cook covered over high heat and pull them the moment they gape, around three minutes — a cockle held past that goes to rubber.

Goes with

Parsley Garlic White wine vinegar Butter Shallot Chorizo Samphire Lemon

In season alongside

Abalone Belon flat oyster Brown shrimp Buck’s-horn plantain Clam Common prawn

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