|
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
whelk stall
|
|
For at least the past century the whelk stall has been proverbial as the smallest possible commercial enterprise ('he couldn't even run a whelk stall'), reflecting the popularity of these small open-air ventures in large cities and at seaside resorts. Sweet Molly Malone is in a smiliar business, in the traditional song, wheeling her barrow through Dublin's streets and crying 'Cockles and mussels! alive, alive, oh!'. The fare on a typical stall, eaten cold after being boiled and seasoned with vinegar, includes cockles, the whelk itself (a large snail-like gastropod), its cousin the winkle (so much smaller that it needs a pin to extract it, thus providing the name for the *winkle-pickers of the 1950s) and jellied eels (boiled freshwater eels, jellied in an aspic of their own juice).
|
|
|
|