The bounty from this afternoons passive recreational activity. A gallon container is the limit and I filled it in minutes once the tide went out and I waded out to chest deep water. (Or the BH of DBH for you guys). These will either get grilled and eaten with butter or get turned into sause. Dinner was already cooking when I got home so they can wait till tomorrow.
grew up on the south shore of long island, clamming was my first source of income. we would go out at dawn, rake till noon, come in and sell them at the dock to the fish market. $100 a day in 1977, 15 years old, big money.
Reminds me of clamming on Shinnecock bay as a kid, clam rake, as many 5 gallon buckets that we could carry- but ankle deep water at low tide... Those were the days!
Are those manilla or cherrystone type clams? So, how will you cook them? My favorite way for those is to cook them in a hard cider. Like this... http://www.food.com/recipe/steamed-clams-sol-duc-392776
They are all Quahog clams, (quahog is pronounced exactly the same as coho for you salmon fishing guys). Cherrystone is a size grade, the smaller ones are little necks. At least that is how it's done here. All but 2 of them are cherrystones. Don't have any hard cider although there are plenty of old and producing Apple trees here. If I had only had a month of vacation (and the extra coin for an island rental) I might have been able to pull it off. These will get grilled for immediate consumption or turned into pasta sauce with tomatoes, basil, garlic and a spot of fennel. The pasta sauce beyond a few dinners gets frozen and brought home. And I have 12 more days of digging opportunity do there is going to be some more. I can only imagine how much fun clamming like that could be.
Just get a clam rake and start dragging it in the marsh. No need to look for anything, just be very quiet so they don't run away. You'll know it when you hit a live clam. Its like raking perfect rocks out of the mud. Old shells don't feel the same.
That's right!!! They make a distinct "clink" that I still remember.... We would do clams on the half shell, but most of our bounty went into baked clams- my mom and the other moms of our camping group would "slave" in tiny camper kitchens to make the best appetizer baked clams (packed in a clam shell) ever!
Very nice! Do you need to leave them in water and let them filter? We had some last year in Maine and the first batch was pretty gritty...
Oh, I think I remember a similar thread from last year that included a lot more pictures. I love clams here too, although I have not gone out harvesting myself. I like them steamed in white wine and minced garlic then dipped in buttah. We live a half hour from clam central here in Ma. Here is where a lot of the clams get processed in our area. This is a decent read if you are into marine fisheries. http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dfg/dmf/publications/2013-dmf-news-1st-2nd-qs-www-8-7-13-small.pdf Enjoy your time off.
So many options.... stuffies, garlic & wine, chowdah, grilled with some buttah..... a little too big for raw bar And now I'm hungry
... I still have my clamming basket with the inner tube around it! I used to make my own clamming rakes from butter knife blades. I used to use concrete cut nails and weld them on the edges but they would break off We have fairly decent clamming here in Cape May. I used to sit in the areas legally open and watch the sea gulls where they would go, then I was on a mission...
Only went clamming as a kid. Then the laws got so strict, and the guys who do it for a living got outraged to have anyone in the wrong area, that it just wasn't worth it. I do like Clams. Very tasty. Best way for me is to have them in a chowda. I'm fussy about not having the bellies.
A little cornmeal in the clean water will have the clams clean the grit out themselves. Just don't dump the water out with the clams, pick each one out singly without stirring up the water.
I'm a foodie, used to live in Maine, and visited my brothers in Oregon quite a bit. I also married a great cook from San Fransisco, that moved to Portland Oregon. So, despite living in an area of the country that isn't known for shellfish, we eat bivalves pretty often. Now I'm craving some mussels and clams....
