Lanzarote Limpet Pickers
The coast of Lanzarote’s Parque Nacional de Timanfaya
One day a few years ago I joined a group of people on a hike across the Parque Nacional de Timanfaya in western Lanzarote. It was one of the most tortuous walks I’ve ever done - almost every step was made difficult by the sharp black rock of the old lava streams which make up this remarkable landscape.
Walking on the coast of the Parque Nacional de Timanfaya
Anyway, half way across this bleak terrain our walk towards the sea, we came across a man who’d been out on the coast harvesting the slim blue limpets which grow in these slightly warmer waters. Patella caerulea is the Latin name for the rayed Mediterranean limpet.
Lanzarote limpet picker
I have eaten these both in Greece, Madeira and in Sardinia - they are very good indeed when fried slowly in pork fat. And here’s the thing for anyone more accustomed to our bigger, fatter, far more muscle-bound North Atlantic limpets…
Sorting fish on the coast of the Parque Nacional de Timanfaya
You can eat those too - but you will need to slow-cook them for quite a while, preferably in white wine which helps to take the chewiness out of these muscular beasts.
It’s not often the Lanzarote limpet pickers don’t see sunshine
In Sardinia I was told to marinate the limpets before cooking them… A friend both marinates the shellfish in parsley, garlic, olive oil, bay leaf, pepper and salt overnight then boils them by adding white wine. He will either then serve the limpets as they are with fresh bread, or put the whole mix into a seafood stew, adding fish stock, tomatoes, more garlic and peppers.
Just south of the Parque Nacional de Timanfaya are the salt-pans of Salinas di Janubio - and I can highly recommend buying some packs of this wonderfully rich sea-salt to bring home if you are ever staying on Lanzarote.
Like it says on the pack salt from Salinas di Janubio
Let me tell you, a chap really does need a good lunch after four hours of walking across the lava flows of that bleak black terrain - but there is a kind of austere beauty to the place…
People enjoying a beer and a fag in a west Lanzarote village
