Cup o’ Cockles is a pop-up street food venture from travel and lifestyle journalist Sara Lieberman. Since November 2014, she’s been living in Paris, but she grew up on the South Shore of Long Island where summers meant crabbing down at the dock, boat rides in the bay and family dinners consisting of baked clams—whole, never chopped! Her father, Stacey Lieberman (known by some as the Cockle King), is the third generation owner of Norman’s, a seafood trucking company launched in 1947 by her great grandfather Norman so her connection to fish runs deep—like the Atlantic, baby!
Modeled loosely on how the British eat their cockles—doused in vinegar out of a styrofoam cup with a spork—Cup o’ Cockles highlights the small clam from New Zealand, which is sustainably raised year-round in the plentiful beds of the Papanui Inlet on the country’s South Island.
We steam the Kiwi cockles before saucing them with flavors from familiar foreign cuisines: French, Italian, Spanish and Thai. The idea is to savor the New Zealand cockle courtesy of globally-recognized flavors making it a real international experience for the curious and culturally-minded foodie.