A Tale To Warm The Cockles Of Your Heart

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Arts, History, Food

4.7 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You might have heard of Molly Malone, selling cockles from a wheelbarrow in Dublin, or of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, with her cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row—but the chances are most Gastropod listeners have never actually tasted a cockle. And, apparently, you're missing out! For the Native American tribes in the Puget Sound, where cockles used to be abundant, they're a treasured treat: meatier, sweeter, and richer-tasting than other shellfish. But they're also disappearing, and no one knows why—or how to save them. This episode, we join the team of intrepid marine biologists and tribal leaders on a mission to restore the cockle, on a journey that involves cockle viagra, a cockle vampire, and some carefully choreographed simultaneous spawning. Listen in now for a story of shellfish science and cultural history that will warm the cockles of your heart—and perhaps inspire the revival of other indigenous foods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I have early memories of salmon bakes and clam bakes and like I can remember the smells
0:09.2	really well and I can remember looking through because I don't like little net clams, I only
0:15.4	like hawkles so I would always be the one kind of looking for all those and my dad would
0:19.7	make sure that I would get some.
0:21.8	They're really important.
0:22.8	They are a food of my use, my mom's use, her grandma's use.
0:27.4	And like it's just something that we've grown up eating and missing.
0:32.2	We'd have a lot of clam bakes and there would always be some cockles in there and that
0:36.4	those have pretty much gone away.
0:38.2	We just don't see them at all anymore.
0:41.3	Most Americans have never eaten a cockle.
0:43.7	In fact, most of us wouldn't know if it came up and hit us in the face.
0:47.7	But we visited the shores of Puget Sound in Washington State where the local Native American
0:52.5	tribes care about cockles a lot.
0:54.6	We spent some time with Robin and Azure, their members of the Soquamish tribe, as well
0:58.9	as the local scientists there, to hear about a program to bring cockles back.
1:03.3	And we of course, our guest repud the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science
1:06.5	and history.
1:07.5	I'm Cynthia Grieber and I'm Nicola Twilly and although I love shellfish, I love oysters
1:12.3	and I love mussels and I love love love lobster.
1:16.3	I've never had a cockle.
1:17.8	So what are they?
	...

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