The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

I was lucky enough to be given some perriwinkles by Mick while we were out.

After three hours of anticipation, (I can't drink as fast as I used to).

I arrived home and got out my favourite pin, I have been passing the past hour removing them from their shells.

Of course the main problem is because they aren't eaten often, it's surprising how the technique of removing all of it from the shell gets lost in time.

Quarter of the way through I have finally managed to regain that skill.

Delicious, each one it's own little package of enjoyment, until, I've never come across this before, I struggled with one that is the opposite thread to all the others!

Have I just eaten a new species? Or did it just not read the instructions?

It tasted just as good, so please, don't dash on and accuse me of being prejudiced.
:)

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Less, I haven't ever tried them......but they look horrible.
I'm glad that you regained your skill in 'winkling' them out of their shells......you can have my share. I would rather eat nose hair(no.....I've never tried it, but I would given that I was forced to choose between that or winkles).

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

I suppose it's a case of what you were brought up to eat.

Any of the mollusc's I can eat and enjoy, I've seen documentaries where people eat locusts for example, don't know if I could, but would like to go there just to find out.
:D

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Haven't had winkles for about 50 yrs. ... Come to think of it, I haven't worn winklepickers for 50 yrs. either.;) ... unless you count cowboy boots:D

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

The only time we got shellfish was when we went to St Anne's and dug up buckets and buckets full of cockles......I never ate them...when I saw them cooked I thought they looked horrible too...so while my dad and the lads had them with salt and vinegar and bread and butter....I just had the bread and butter. Ma never ate them either....she just had a fag and a cup of coffee for her tea.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

One of the first chef jobs i had was in a french resterant. I got to try some fantastic and exotic foods, but i drew the line at snails. I often got close but always chckened out. :D:D:D:D

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Not hard really Al, I mean it's not as if they can go racing off! :D

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Less I'm with you on this, they are yummy, as are cockles, mussels, whelks etc. Ironic that we live by the sea and I don't know anywhere round here that sells shellfish. And the only thing I draw the line at are Morecambe Bay potted shrimps! They are like eating bogies!

When I was in America you could only find shell fish in things like oyster stew and hot buttered crab - abortions both, shellfish are to be eaten cold, with a pin. Or in the case of the French plateau de fruits de mer, something more substantial like pliers and a dentists probe. I'm drooling at the thought of it and also remembering some Saturday teas at home in the sixties with the family gathered round a small table to share a fresh crab and some cockles and winkles and Doctor Who on the box. Bliss!

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Oh, my! This thread has brought back so many happy childhood memories for me (and for him indoors). Winkles - AND potted shrimps (sorry, Susie). Eaten at Blackpool and Fleetwood, many, many years ago. All part of a day trip there.
I do enjoy all seafood EXCEPT for oysters (doesn't matter how they're served, don't like them). Used to enjoy crayfish until they got so bl**** expensive that it's a luxury the ordinary person can't afford.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Himself eats such delicacies..in fact he has just got some mussels out of the freezer......to eat as a snack later.
We once went to some yacht club in Queensland...he chose a bowl of king prawns.....when it came, it was almost the size of a washing up bowl...it had 3 lemons quartered and placed on top...he thought he had died and gone to heaven......oh and all these prawns still had their heads and their overcoats on.
I could not have eaten them if you had promised me a million pounds

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Just a thought. Shows how times have changed - how many kids these days would think that a serving of winkles was such an enjoyable part of a day's outing?

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

We used to go crabbing with our kids - and when we caught more than we could eat would give the surplus away to friends. Now they are so expensive to buy, like so many other things - almost in the luxury class along with the crayfish.
Luckily we are able to buy good-sized prawns at a reasonable price, I have no trouble with removing their heads and overcoats (love that description, Margaret) whether raw or cooked (my 6-year-old granddaughter always insists that we leave the tails on hers!) - it's worth it to get to the meat inside.
I eat a lot of fish (hasn't done anything to help the old brain cells though - thinks that must be a myth!!!!) but we make sure any fish we buy is Australian or New Zealand. Nothing from the Mekong Delta, enough said!

The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Now there's a bait I've never used, did you use the whole kid or did you mince it to make it go further?
:o

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Ha ha, Less. I should have been more careful how I wrote this - reference to the old brain cells will explain a lot. Btw, I do have a few offspring but none surplus to give away.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

...I also like the fact that you have a favourite pin, Less. Is this kept strictly for winkle-picking?

The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

No, it's also used to get food out of my tooth cavities and to remove the dirt from my fingernails.
;)

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Now that's a pin worth having - multifunctional.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

My grandad stood the fish market in Accy all his working life and when he visited Fleetwood on business he would bring back crayfish as a treat. All the rest we could get on Accy market... was it Molly's seafood stall?

I'm not keen on oysters but I will eat them - specially as I had them in the market hall in Baltimore, USA... washed down with a pint of Guinness. And oyster stew is just about bearable...

The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

It's a Swiss Navy pin.
:)

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

The tails are the best bit... crunchy, juicy and meaty all at the same time. She's obviously a connoisseur - and I'm salivating...

And I was wondering the same thing about today's children and treats - would they even know what winkles and whelks etc are?

Oh well toasted bagel for breakfast tomorrow with cream cheese and sea monsters (anchovies) or perhaps grilled kippers...

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Less, is that anything like a Swiss Army Knife?

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Susie, crayfish over here is about $90 a kilo now (about £53) - and, when you think of all the shell you're buying as well, the edible part really is a luxury. If I could afford it I still wouldn't buy it on principle.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

surprising as it seams periwinkles are very hard to find these days on fish stalls
Blackburn don't sell them Accy don't sell them or Burnley the only place I can get them is when I go over to Preston they are £1:20 for 100g and don't forget most of that is shell so they are starting to get expensive too.
but like less I love them too:D

The wife came home from asda once with a big smile on her face and said "I have found them things you like"
she gave me a package of periwinkles shrink-wrapped in plastic film.
I opened the plastic put the periwinkles on a plate and went to find a pin when I got back the periwinkles where all over the plate and worktop they where still alive and not cooked I had to boil them myself:D:D

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Sounds like something out of an Alien film, how fast do they move?

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Oh dear! The problem with Winkles is lots of shell, lots of work, hard to get at little critters and not much meat.(in a fishy sort of way)

Can I have the vegetarian version please? What's that? A pomegranate!

The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Not at all, the Swiss Army Knife isn't waterproof.

However the Swiss Navy Pin is designed to float and always point north when immersed in salt water. Though in common with the army knife, the navy pin does have a device for removing stones from a sea horses hoof.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Less, you are truly 'batty' but in the funniest sort of way.

I still can't get the mental picture of those winkles that Anne bought for Mick, making a bid for freedom.

The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

I have never denied it Margaret, :) though I must admit to feeling relieved that you know who hasn't shown his ugly face to ruin a bit of innocent banter between friends.
I'll treat this as my holiday, no doubt like a winkle that slug will return to leave his slime over the site.
;)

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Well Less, you know what they say? It takes one, to know one.
I admit to being a bit batty too, but I like to call it eccentric...it sounds, somehow a bit more acceptable.
As for slugs...I have some pellets in the garage...only harmful to slugs, safe around animals and children...though I have to admit I haven't fed them to the tinlids to test out this claim.

The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

I'm afraid we don't qualify as eccentric, we aren't aristocratic nor did we have silver spoons in our mouths when born (mine would be in a pawn shop by now if I had been).
So we will have to settle for what we can afford, which is not a full shilling!
:)

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Not a silver spoon in your case Less but a winkle picker?

The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Yes a size 9 black one, I know I suffer from foot in mouth disease.
;)

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

winckles, arghhhhhhhhhhhhh, like eating snot.me and my sister used to collect them at heysham head.dad thought they were brill.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Less and Margaret - isn't it great to be battily eccentric....life is much more fun when you are. I get away with lots of things because of being perceived as such. You have to be very clever to be able to get away with it.
Many thanks for all the chuckles you bring to the Web.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Dotti, you are so right, except Less tells me that because we are commoners and not the aristocrats(I thought that was a disney film)...we are not entitled to use the term eccentric...we have be 'not a full shilling'...but I tell you, I am worth at least tenpence of anybody's money.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Could we be aristocratic commoners - is there such a thing? Am sure if we go back further enough in time there will be some connection to that lot of the blue blood brigade....maybe it's wishful thinking on my part that I am an eccentric - more probably it's that I'm just daft!!!!!! Common knowledge!!!!!!

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

That would take us past Eccentric and swiftly descending into Lunacy. Without trying we would invent a set of rules at first as guidance then, after a few smart arses found that money could be made by telling people how to obey the rules we would find ourselves splitting into smaller and smaller groups.

The Eccentrics would feel superior to the not a full shillings, the not a few shillings would feel persecuted by the Eccentrics, eventually after a couple of millenia we would settle down to being ordinary joes that can put up with each others idiosyncracies, until our peace is disturbed by the virtual knock on the door and some seventh stage compulsive obsessive will not accept that we can get along and start quoting from the Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy and telling us what to do.
:(

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

You've convinced me, Less. I'll just stay daft.

Re: The Trouble With Winkles Is...
 

Got a visit from my brother yesterday
and he brought me pressies:)
4 bags of winkles (less might get some tomorrow if I have not finished them):p
4 ox/beef cheeks these are really tasty slow cooked in the oven for a few hours.
if you get the chance try them :)
and a 1 pint cup with "grumpy old git " on er thanks dear brother :D

ps hope you get through all your e-mail now its sorted:D:D:D