A Request

I had a message from a dear reader asking for a little clarification about my seafood foraging so please patient with me while I wrap it all up with one more story.

To an outsider and even those who are experienced,  the expedition is rather strange and involves a bunch of people in odd outfits pacing or stomping around on the sand and in the surf with their heads down. Some people ;have tamping sticks and some do not. While shovels or clam guns are needed so are receptacles for the clams such as buckets, nets or gallon jugs with holes in the top and tied around waists.

It is the goal to achieve a limit of 15 total clams without mangling them. The rule is that if you dig it, it becomes one of the limit even if it is small, missing a neck or already minced into a chowder state. It can take as little as 8 minutes to fill out a limit as one of the fellas was bragging about to a couple of hours, it all depends on what mother nature is doing with the sand, surf and sky as well as what the attitude of the clams happens to be.

Clams do not just throw themselves into your receptacle, they have to be dug. But that is not always true, at rare times the clams will ‘neck’ and stick the tip of their neck above the level of the flat sand. I have had the opportunity to pinch the tip of a clam with my fingers and hold until the clam loosened its grip in the sand and pull it right out without a single scoop, sleeve of a gun or plunge of my arm.

A quick session of getting clams usually wipes me out and I need time to recover so I put my limit in a bucket with sea water and let the clams sit to clean themselves out while I relax. On evening tides the clams spend the night in sea water and I clean them in the morning. By then most of the sand has worked through them and cleaning is a breeze.

Dipping them in boiling water releases their shells before cooling them in cold water. With the shells removed, each one needs to be prepped individually and flayed out flat for cooking, freezing or for holding in the fridge until ready to eat.

My clam repertoire is very limited to fried clams (usually done whole when the clams are tender and chopping the necks for chowder and sauces during the months that they are tougher) in a panko type breading, a thick chowder that is basically potato soup with clams, and linguine with a white sauce brimming with clam chunks. Our wonderful guides on this three day adventure told me of one of their recipes and now I believe that it will become a favorite and it is so simple.

Dip cleaned clams in egg wash and roll in crushed Ritz crackers (finely crushed).

Bake in convection oven at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.

I positioned the clams in a single layer on parchment paper as they baked and they were delicious, and best of all the guides had made sure we have enough clams for the freezer to enjoy all winter long.