If Periwinkles Taste Like Clams, Why Don't We Eat Them?

Periwinkles taste like steamer clams and cover almost every rock on the New England coast, so why does nobody eat them? These little sea snails are free for anyone with a pot of salted water, yet Maine clam shacks have lines out the door while periwinkles get stepped on. In this video we test the obvious answers (taste and supply), then dig into what really held periwinkles back: pea-sized meat sealed behind a lid called an operculum, a dock price of about a dollar a pound, and an arrival story that starts with ballast rock dumped from European ships in Pictou, Nova Scotia, around 1840. Along the way we look at why Maine's soft shell clams are disappearing, why London, Dublin and Paris never stopped eating winkles, and the experiment that showed periwinkles helped shape the rocky New England shoreline itself. We finish with how to cook periwinkles at home. Chapters 0:00 Clams vs periwinkles on a Maine shore 1:00 Is it the taste? 1:52 The clam is the one in trouble 2:52 Tiny, sealed shut and cheap 4:35 How periwinkles reached America 6:21 The snail that reshaped the coast 8:09 How to cook periwinkles References Brawley et al. (2009), Historical invasions of the intertidal zone of Atlantic North America, PNAS: https://repository.si.edu/handle/1008... Littorina littorea invasion history, Smithsonian NEMESIS: https://invasions.si.edu/nemesis/caln... Bertness (1984), Habitat and community modification by an introduced herbivorous snail, Ecology: https://marineinfo.org/id/publication... Maine DMR periwinkle landings and value: https://www.maine.gov/dmr/sites/maine... Maine DMR historical landings data: https://maine.gov/dmr/fisheries/comme... Cause of Maine clam decline identified (Downeast Institute and University of Maine at Machias): https://machias.edu/news/?p=4677