Dawlish Discussion

No not an unfamiliar expletive or anything to worry about unless you happen to be a goose barnacle.

I don't know if it's still there but yestyerday at the end of Dawlish beach (the Red Rock Cafe end) was a huge piece of timber totally covered in goose barnacles. They are a culinary delicacy - in Spain they sell for £90 a kilo! Cook quickly in boiling salt water (or a nice wine, garlic and cream sauce). Could this be the spark of a Dawlish commercial regeneration - the Dawlishous goose barnacle centre of the UK.

And what was the timber? Mainmast from an Armada ship? Perhaps any Dawlish historians ought to do a recce.

Have fun.

Thanks to neilh for something completely different, I took this from Wikipedia.

Some species of goose barnacles are pelagic and are most frequently found on tidewrack on oceanic coasts. Unlike most other types of barnacles, intertidal goose barnacles depend on water motion rather than the movement of their cirri for feeding, and are therefore found only on exposed or moderately exposed coasts.

In Portugal and Spain, they are a widely consumed and expensive delicacy known as percebes. Percebes are harvested commercially in the northern coast, mainly in Galicia, and are also imported from overseas, particularly from Morocco and Canada.

I love the word Pelagic Wriggler - I'm going to try and use it. There was a question about Barnacles on University Challenge tonight - the answer was (sadly) not Pelagic though!