MY WIFE Ann loves a dish of cockles in a drop of strong malt vinegar, preferably in some Essex seaside resort like Southend or Leigh-on-Sea. She has been eating them all her life, often from a stall either at the seaside or once upon a time from a barrow outside a London pub. I too love all kinds of shellfish, including cockles, and I’m happy to ignore Pliny the Elder (the Frosty of his time — Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher who died in 74 AD). He said: “…shellfish are the prime cause of the decline of morals and the adaptation of an extravagant lifestyle.”