Street View Street Food
Cockles
History
A cockle is a small, edible, marine bivalve mollusc.
Although many small edible bivalves are loosely called
cockles, true cockles are species in the family Cardiidae.
True cockles live in sandy, sheltered beaches throughout
the world. The distinctive rounded shells are bilaterally
symmetrical, and are heart-shaped when viewed from
the end. Numerous radial evenly spaced ribs are a
feature of the shell in most but not all genera (for an
exception, see the genus Laevicardium, the egg cockles,
which have very smooth shells).
Culture
Cockles are a popular type of edible shellfish in both
Eastern and Western cooking. They are collected by
raking them from the sands at low tide. However,
collecting cockles is hard work and, as seen from the
Morecambe Bay disaster, in which 23 people died, can
be dangerous if local tidal conditions are not carefully
watched. In England and Wales, people are permitted
to collect 5 kg of cockles for personal use. However,
pickers wishing to collect more than this are deemed
to be engaging in commercial fishing and are required
to obtain a permit from the Inshore Fisheries and
Conservation Authority.
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