Whelks are a type of sea snail, or gastropod, inhabiting the Atlantic Ocean and some of its bays and sounds in North America and Europe. Farther south, the family includes conch. In Europe, especially in England, where people eat lots of shelled creatures that might make Americans shudder, whelks are extremely popular.
Credit April Bloomfield, herself an English import, for placing three whole, lightly boiled whelks still in their shells on a plate with a small tub of warm, garlicky green sauce at the John Dory in Midtown Manhattan. Armed with a small fork, you pull the pale meat from the whorled shell, dip and enjoy.
“Some people have questions about them,” said Tim Carosi, the restaurant’s manager. “Most don’t know what they are. But those who do, order them, sometimes 6 or 10 at a time.”
At Oceana, in Rockefeller Center, the executive chef, Ben Pollinger, included a scungilli salad with celery, olives, chiles, cranberry beans and herbs in a lemon-and-olive-oil dressing on his menu last year for the Feast of the Seven Fishes. This year, he has been serving a whelk-and-potato chowder. He said he first encountered the shellfish a few years ago while visiting Maine. “They’re very popular up there,” he said.
Whelks range in size from a couple of inches — a dozen or so in a pound — to eight or nine inches long. So-called common whelks are the smallest and the ones to seek at the fish market for their briny-sweet taste and only slight chewiness. Often from Maine, these are the whelks Ms. Bloomfield serves and Mr. Pollinger puts on his raw bar.
Larger varieties, like the channeled whelk or the knobbed whelk, are usually sold as scungilli. In the New York region, they often come from Long Island Sound, Cape Cod and Peconic Bay.
by Florence Fabricant, NY Times | Read more:
Photo: Marilynn K. Yee
