Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
Goose barnacle
Cut from wave-battered rock with a blade, between two waves.
- Drop into unsalted boiling water for 60 to 90 seconds, not one more
- Drain and serve warm, the skin peels off with a pinch
- That is all: there is nothing to add
- In French
- Pouce-pied
- Scientific name
- Pollicipes pollicipes
- In the water
- Wave-beaten rocks of the Atlantic, Brittany, Galicia and Portugal, in the surf zone.
- Season & buying
- October to March, at spring low tides.
- Common length
- ~4.5 cm
- How to identify it
- Dark fleshy scaly stalk
Head of overlapping white chalky plates
Always in a tight cluster, never alone
On the plate
Concentrated seawater, sweet and powerful, with no equivalent.
Avoid: Any sauce, any long cooking. You are paying for the product, not the recipe.
Galician percebeiros work roped into the swell and several die every year: that, not the animal's rarity, is what explains the price.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
