Little old sleepy clevedon in the west country has thrown a suprise that in my world is hugely surprising but magically exciting, and will possibly make me chuckle to myself for years to come.
There is a marina at the end of clevedon promenade which has been there since the nineteen thirties and was for many decades used by local mad people who enjoyed swimming in the middle of winter………………….bbbbrrrrr. It is also a great spot for parents, accompanied with small screaming and over excited children to dangle left over pieces of bacon rind from breakfast, tied in one of mothers washing tablet bags and dangled over the edge to entice sideways party animals (aka shore crabs). Who then are shaken into sand buckets of warm sea water.
Apart from these activities the lake sees very little action and is viewed simply as a piece of water that in the summer turns aqua marian in color due to the silt settling, thus giving the bristol change ahead of it an even more unfriendly and diry demenour. Until one day a few years ago i happened to be fishing nearby for cod and noticed that it had been emptied of water and in amongst the old bicycles and rubber wellies were two enormous diggers, chugging out huge bucket loads of black silt and dispencing them over the marina wall onto the foreshore.
Intrigued and curious i strolled down and jumped into the now empty marina which suprisingly had a solid concrete bottom under the silt, and there they were………..i had struck gold.
“Cockles and cockles alive alive oh”! billions of the little critters just sat there waiting to be scooped up and taken home to be scoffed in a zillion different ways. I was so excited i almost wet myself and forgot that i was not wearing wellies only brand new trainers…… bugger!
I dashed home for wellies and rake and trays.
The result was as i remember twenty kilos of cockles to do with many many things.
Above are the ingredients for my cockle and wild garlic chowder. Below a large jar of spiced pickled cockles
and below again are an example of cold oak smoked cockles……….delicious
more to follow.
Now however, itis St. Georges day and therefore i must dash out and forage for that amazzing springtime fungus of the same name.