Cockle

Sharp acid on tiny salt meat, eaten standing up in the wind.

Laverbread and cockles: seaweed and shellfish off the same tide.

Ground over the cup. Heat without colour, which is the British way.

Into the pan with garlic and oil. Nothing here needs to be clever.

Two minutes in hot oil and the cockles season themselves in it.

Smoked fat against sandy brine, on the same plate since forever.

Steam medium, and the liquor left behind beats the cockles themselves.

They grow a metre apart. Serving them apart is the strange choice.

Cured back fat melted over hot cockles. The fat carries the iodine.

Green acid against sandy brine. Reads more coastal than lemon does.

Juniper, coriander seed, brine. Each one finishes the other off.