Thursday, August 20, 2009

Not in my pool please!

OK in the quest to learn Australian sea-food I find myself at page 596 of Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion. Encountering Pipis. Which are not quite what I assumed a million French tourist were doing in the sea at Nice. Which my further research tell me one may use a rake to harvest in South Australia... but although I may gather them in Tasmania, there's a nix on rakes. Now I've dug for Donax serra (white sand mussel) with my feet, at night, chest deep in the freezy waves of Blouberg strand. Sometimes your toes feel a lump that's a sand mussel, and sometimes a lump that's a crab. Fun! I've dug with my hands for another clam species up at Saldanha (v.different habitat- just inside the very small ripple top of tide ripple.) Where doth the pipi lurk? and how do you draw it from the briny? with offers of a walk or discussion of shoes, of ships, of sealing wax, of cabbages and kings... ?

6 comments:

  1. Where doth the pipi lurk?

    New Zealand estuaries.

    Cockles, on the other hand...

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  2. well cockles then. But I refer you to http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/HMUY-5MZVAW?open

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  3. <shrug> It's a term I've only heard in New Zealand. Then again, it's all shellfish to me.

    [Not a great fan of seafood, especially molluscs, I'm afraid.]

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  4. Dad catches fish using pippies (you know you are in a fisherman's car when you find the rotten pippy under the seat).

    Not many of us eat them in NSW, mainly used for bait.

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  5. my uncle took us pipi hunting when we were younger along the NSW North Coast.

    I don't know if his methods were traditional aboriginal or not, but the burgers he made from them after certainly were not!

    If I remember correctly, we walked along the shoreline looking for breathing holes, then dug them out, sometimes with our feet, sometimes using a stick or shovel - whatever we had to hand.

    I think the tide had to be going out, but it was a long time ago, so don't quote me on that!

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  6. Thank you! at least I have some idea now. I have collected clams at the tide line like that (but only in special places). However the other cockle type thing was abundant - but chest deep in rough water.

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