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• To cook cockles is very quick and easy, to prepare them is much more delicate (Challenging!). The problem is that they live in the sand . When you gather them they are full of grit so you must get rid of it before cooking.
  
  Put the cockles in a large bowl full of salted water (taste the water, it has to be as salted as the sea (20g salt per 1l water). Leave them for at least half an hour. During this time, the cockles will open themselves and drive out the sand. Take the cokles out , change the water, be careful to remove all the sand and do it again till there is no more sand (or till you are fed up !).
  
  If you don't find sand in the bowl, you've got two possibilities (1) it has been done before by the nice guy who sold you the cockles, (2) the cockles are not alive enough to do it... To know which is the right one, cook quickly some of them and taste : if it's sandy, it's hopless ! If not go forward !

• 1 kilo cockles per person,
• Little white wine if you like,
• Fresh ground pepper,
• No salt, the cockles are already salted.

This recipe is very very easy to do !

When the cockles are cleaned put them in a large pan under a strong, bright fire. Mix them with a large spoon until they are all open. It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes following the amont of cockles you've got. The principle is that when they are open they are cooked !

If you want you can put in the pan at the beginning little dry white wine and at the end fresh ground peper.

Anyway, eat them as soon as they are cooked as described for the mussels with some friends and a glass of dry white wine.

• As with all cooked bivalves, be careful : throw away all open cockles (before cooking) and don't eat the ones which are not open (after cooking) ! One says it's a sign they were dead before cooking... and nobody knows for how long !