Collecting Cockles: A Galician Women’s Tradition

Reader Contribution by Leila And Anthony and The Recipe Hunters
Published on June 26, 2017
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An hour into our first road trip to hunt down traditional recipes on the western coast of Galicia, we strike gastronomic gold in the form of Galician cockles, locally known as berberechos.

Upon descending a winding road which hugs the hillside slopes of Muros y Noia, we come upon 100 individuals bobbing up and down in the bay water near the seashore. We park the car below the pines, take off our sneakers, roll up our jeans and head into the low tide. About 200 meters out, we realize that the floating individuals are all women and they are raking the seashore for cockles.

Within 5 minutes of entering the water, we have a group of Galician women teaching us the tricks of their trade: how to hold and drag the rake, how to identify if the cockle is big enough for harvesting, and how to keep your bucket from falling over. When we ask how to cook the cockles (hoping for an invite into a local’s kitchen and a traditional recipe) a husky woman with a hearty chuckle and whole-hearted grin, grabs two cockles in her hand and uses one to pop the other open. She plops the naked, squirming mollusk in her open hand and says we either steam them or eat them raw…with a wink she pops one into in her mouth and we follow her lead.

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