Winkles

For the first time in 30-odd years, many Brits have started eating winkles again. Unable to holiday abroad this summer, we headed to the British seaside and rediscovered the winkle stalls that were once part of everyday life. Winkle recipes — similar to snail recipes — are suddenly popping up, and October is the perfect month for picking these shore-dwelling molluscs.

For me, a winkle has a Proustian effect. Every Sunday when I was a child, we’d have winkles for tea. My father would put some on each of our plates and we’d have an eggcup full of vinegar, some pepper, and our own winkling pin to get the little blighters out. There’s a knack to twisting the pin in: you need to flick out the ‘eye’ — a small protective disc — then prise out what looks like a tiny grey slug. Even a good hearty go with the pin leads only to a small pile of mollusc, but eating the humble winkle is as much about history as it is about food.

My dad had moved a long way from his roots in the East End. We owned our own home, had a car and went on holiday abroad. But he spoke about his time growing up very often. I think he was glad that we had much better life opportunities than he did, but he wanted to keep his connection to Canning Town, to the hawkers and market people of east London, so we had winkles on a Sunday, and we didn’t care how silly that might have seemed.

In Victorian London, winkles were a staple food, a snack favoured by the poor. They were also fresh: hauled up that morning on the shores of the Thames estuary.