Cockles

Cockles are small, edible, marine bivalves. They live in sandy beaches, and their shells are symmetrically round which appear heart shaped when viewed from the ends. Preparing them for cooking entails thorough washing to remove the sand, and they have to be cooked before they can be consumed, though, because raw cockles have been known to cause hepatitis. They are prepared through boiling, frying, or pickling.

There are several types of cockles such as the common cockle, or the Cerastoderma edule, the dog cockle which is inedible, the blood cockle which is common in Korea and Malaysia, and the true cockle which is also known as the egg cockle. The common name "cockle" is also given by seafood sellers to a number of other small, edible marine bivalves which have a somewhat similar shape and sculpture, but are in other families such as the Veneridae (Venus clams) and the ark clams (Arcidae). Cockles in the family Cardiidae are sometimes referred to as "true cockles" to distinguish them from these other species. The common cockle, Cerastoderma edule, is widely distributed around the coastlines of Northern Europe, with a range extending west to Ireland, the Barents Sea in the north, Norway in the east, and as far south as Senegal.