Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
Wedge clam
It lives in the breaking surf, where nobody can stand up.
- Purge for two hours in seawater, it is full of sand
- In a very hot pan with garlic and parsley, it opens in two minutes
- Throw away any that stay shut
- In French
- Telline
- Scientific name
- Donax trunculus
- In the water
- Fine sand in the surf zone, Mediterranean and Atlantic, from the surface to 6 metres.
- Season & buying
- May to September, when it rises in the sand.
- Common length
- ~2.8 cm
- How to identify it
- Small elongated triangular shell, one end blunt and the other pointed
Very smooth glossy surface
Colour rays fanning from the hinge to the rim
On the plate
Sweet and mild, far less briny than a clam, almost nutty.
Avoid: Never purge it in fresh water: it opens, empties itself and dies.
Every wave tears it out of the sand, it replants itself in three seconds with its foot, and it works its way up the beach at that rate all season.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
