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By Norman Miller 4 March 2021
There are only around 20 days a year when the law allows you to go down to the shoreline on the English Channel Island of Guernsey in search of a prized mollusc that, when French was the dominant language here until the late 19th Century, was known as
oreille de mer (sea ear) – though one engaging variation dubbed it “Venus Ear”.
Now known as ormer, this is the most northerly member of the abalone family, with dozens of global cousins found in places as far apart as Senegal, Australia, Japan and California. But only in the Channel Islands are they gathered by hand off the seashore – and wrapped in a host of rules.