Cockles and Langoustines
Sustainable Seafood Choices Make New Delicious Scampi
Warm the cockles of your heart with this Scampi dish. Use Langoustines and cockles and you've got a sustainable seafood choice that's delicious and exotic.
Cockles, Langoustines
Friends at Delicious Italy entered in a recipe for a dish called "Brodetto" in the “Teach a Man to Fish" Sustainable Seafood Event. Brodetto is often made with Scampi or Langoustines.
Our fishmonger had an uncommon shipment the other day which we pounced on. Then the question was: what to do with them. My first instinct was to make scampi. That is our English term for a dish comprised of shrimp, garlic, oil and pasta. To the Italians, "Scampi" is Langoustine. Confused yet?
Scampi or Langoustine?
Research was clearly in order; first our Langoustines.
These tasty decapods are in the same family as Lobsters, Shrimp, and Crawfish - all having ten legs. They are the salt-water cousins of the freshwater crawfish known here in the US. Langoustines are most often shipped from the waters around Northern and Southern Europe.
One might say it's a fine kettle of fish to mean it's a confused mess. Another meaning of that term is discussed in this site called World Wide Words. If you like words this site is fun to hop around. Check it out. I consulted the curious resource to find out about another phrase pertaining to this meal.
What is the Origin of the Phrase to Warm the Cockles of Your Heart?
The phrase, which refers to something creating joy or delight, can be traced to a couple of possible origins. One is their heart shape. Possibly the Cochlea Cordis, an early Latin term used to describe the heart has something to do with it.
Once you're done hopping around World Wide Words, imagine hopping mollusks. No, really. These little guys look like tiny little clams with a rounded shape, with a ribbed, often green shell. They have ability to hop around on their large “foot”.
What Exactly is Sustainable Seafood?
Do you know Alaska is the only state that has written conservation laws into its Constitution. Nearer my home state, the legislature and fishermen of Rhode Island are engaged in a battle over proposed bans meant to protect dwindling fish stocks. Only a far-sighted balancing of environmental protections and legislative attention to the economic impact on fishermen will work. We'll see how this goes. Right now the sides look as far apart as the Marianas Trench is deep (how's that for an oceanographic reference point?)
How do we know when we're staring at the fish counter and looking at all the varieties available what to purchase and what to avoid? Here are some resources and an interesting article in the SF Chronicle that simplifies the issue in a helpful way. This article includes tips for consumers on determining the source of their fish.
Other great resources include the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Pocket Guides. They even have a downloadable version you can keep on your mobile device.
Generally, we don't support unitaskers in the kitchen. A family member usually gives us kitchen tools for Christmas and shellfish scissors were among them last year. Turns out they are perfect for extracting every last bit of meat from small shellfish.
