My mother, siblings, older cousins and her children and I went to Jericho beach one summer day. My mom and cousin enlisted "the kids" to dig up clams, which we all did excitedly. We brought the bag of clams home and cooked them. The kids all the while were aware of the dangers (due to popular knowledge of folks raised here). The clams tasted awful and we threw them all away. My mother and cousin had merely done what they could have done and used to do back home in Pacific Northwest Costa Rica where people for centuries, millennia lived and ate off the sea and land.