The Food of a Younger Land (12 page)

When you write about clams, readers outside New England will be confused unless it is made clear that the clam in New England is not the same as the clam in, say, Maryland, where Little Necks on the half shell have helped to make Baltimore famous. The Little Neck, when grown, is still a clam south of New England, but in New England he is—and always was, even when he was called a Little Neck—a quahog. Outsiders frequently call New England clams “soft clams,” and the Standard Dictionary says that the quahog is a “round clam,” both of which are ridiculous to any true seaside Yankee. He will tell you, anywhere along the coast from Maine to Connecticut, that “a clam is a clam and a quahog is a quahog.”

You probably will be saying something about clam chowder, and you may or may not know that there always has been a considerable difference between the—so-called—Massachusetts and Rhode Island clam chowders, with bitter debates as to their relative merits. As I was born in Massachusetts but once was press agent for a Rhode Island shore resort (where 6,000 clambake eaters each pleasant Sunday was the season’s average) I take no sides. Both factions speak with equal scorn of “clam chowder, Coney Island style.” (Incidentally, a lot of people think a good clam chowder is even better the second day, warmed up.)

HARRY M. FREEMAN

T
hose who are fond of seafood seldom can resist an opportunity to enjoy a shore dinner at their favorite seaside resort. Not many of the present generation, however, have had the wonderful experience or the epicurean delights of an out-door “clam-bake” way down in Maine.

Let us suppose you are already at the seashore, you will be awake at sunrise and in your old clothes.

You will need the help of others in your party in gathering numerous large rocks from the shore. These rocks will be spread out in the form of a flat pile. Then a large wood fire will be built on the rocks and allowed to burn several hours to thoroughly heat the rocks.

While the rocks are heating, put on your rubber boots and, with an old hoe, go to the flats to dig your clams. On the beach you will also gather a quantity of seaweed.

By this time the rocks will probably be heated, and you can remove most of the fire. A layer of seaweed is put on the hot rocks and then your clams, lobsters, potatoes, corn and whatnot. Finally place another layer of seaweed to cover your victuals.

Your muscles will now thoroughly ache and you will need to sit around to relax and smack your lips.

M. METEVIER OF FULTON, NEW YORK

S
erved once a year. Tickets sell from $1.50 to $2.50, depending upon the number of courses to be served. No decorations whatsoever, every effort is put into the meal. Tables are covered with white paper. All food is served on paper plates. Cardboard containers are used for clam broth; the cover for melted butter.

The above meal is favored at the K. C. Home. It is an annual feast. No program, nothing but eats!

WALTER HACKETT AND HENRY MANCHESTER

I
n his
A Key into the Language of America
, Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, wrote: “Sickissaug . . . This is a sweet kind of shellfish which all Indians generally over the country, Winter and Summer delight in; and at low water the women dig for them: this fish, and the natural liquor of it, they boil, and it makes their broth, their Nasaump (which is a kind of thickened broth).”

So it was that the Indians made, drank, and enjoyed their “thickened broth.” But not for long. Oh, no! For with the entry of the white men into what is now Rhode Island, this picture of culinary contentment changed. What was good enough for the Indians wasn’t good enough for the followers of Roger Williams, for they—meddlesome and finicky creatures that they must have been—became intent upon improving the “thickened broth.” It is claimed by one school of little known and possibly inaccurate historians that the tribes became so wrought up over the shameful attempt of the Rhode Island white men to improve upon “thickened broth” that they—led by a sympathetic chieftain from the Massachusetts sector—broke out in open revolt. Hence, King Philip’s War, from the Indian chief of the same name.

Now if these same white men had had an inkling of the furor that was to follow, an argument destined to become ageless, they possibly wouldn’t have bothered to improve the primary Indian dish. They’d have forgotten all about chowder, and said: “O.K. So it’s ‘thickened broth.’ ”

All of which points to the main issue: Whether or not to use tomatoes in place of milk. It is also possible to raise a good rip-roaring argument on the subject of clams versus quahogs, likewise on the use of salt pork and onions.

Governor Winslow, of the Plymouth Colony, is said to have imported cows as early as 1624 (there were no cows on the
Mayflower
—just goats; cow fodder would have taken up the all-important space needed for antiques). A cow in a canoe—it is claimed—is an unhandy thing, so there is serious doubt that Roger Williams had one with him when he landed upon Rhode Island soil. However, at a slightly later date, there were plenty of cows within a few miles of the new colony, and no doubt some of them were brought to Providence. Thus we see the possibility—but no proof—that Rhode Island clam chowder had milk added to it as early as the second half of the seventeenth century.

How to dispose of the Tomato Challenge:
Rhode Island clam chowder contained no tomatoes until about 200 years after the founding of the state in 1636.
This is a reasonable statement because tomatoes, in those very early days, were considered poisonous. However, when tomatoes were added to clam chowder, much of it was due to the work of a transplanted Rhode Islander.

This brings to the fore one Michele Felice Corne. An Italian painter, he landed in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1800. Corne painted murals (it saved wall paper, he claimed) in Salem, Boston, and Providence. But business couldn’t have been so good, because he turned to cultivating tomatoes. But people, thinking him mildly deranged, refused to eat his tomatoes. When he moved to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1822, he once again picked up the loose shreds of tomato-growing. By dint of hard work and much talk, Corne managed to win to his side a few converts, and then more and more until finally Rhode Island, along with other states, became tomato conscious. The rush to climb aboard the tomato bandwagon began.

By 1840, tomatoes were held to be healthful. Popular medicines of the day attracted customers by adding extract of tomatoes to their formulas. Now it is entirely possible that some convert to the rank of the tomato may, in an unpremeditated burst of enthusiasms, have dropped an innocent tomato into the clam chowder—when no one was looking.

This is the other half of the long-winded argument. Winning sympathy at every step, and all the while challenging the deeply-rooted milk chowder, the tomato clam chowder bloc gained in power. The cause of the tomato won additional strength when the resorts alongshore serving bakes, known as shore dinner places, added tomatoes to their chowder. Even Colonel Atwell of the famous Fields Point establishment was guilty of this culinary outrage. Probably people coming from outside the state, strangers to Rhode Island ways, took this concoction for real Rhode Island clam chowder.

Roger Williams’s observations on clams conclude on a plaintive note: “The English Swine dig and root these Clams whensoever they come, and watch low water (as the Indian women do), therefore of all the English Cattell, the Swine as also of their filthy dispositions are most hateful to all Natives, and they call them filthy cut-throats, etc.”

There was, perhaps, a point to the Indian’s hatred of the white man. He didn’t have a chance. Even the pigs raced him for his favorite food—the clam.

Below is the recipe for real Rhode Island clam chowder, which was, and still is, popular with in-staters from Newport to South County:

Fry four slices of mixed salt pork until brown; add two onions, sliced, and fry. Remove the pork and onions from the pork fat and add to it four cups of water, four cups of diced potatoes. Cook until the potatoes are nearly done, then add four cups of chopped clams from which all black parts have been removed. Add salt and pepper to taste. Scald three cups of rich milk, and add to first mixture. Let it all boil up at once and pour into a tureen in which four crackers have been broken, together with one-eighth pound of butter.

To allow the disciples of tomato clam (or quahog) chowder their innings, here is their pet recipe:

Cut one-quarter pound of fat salt pork in fine pieces. Chop two onions and add them to the pork. Fry this mixture until brown. Strain one can of tomatoes and add three quarts of water, a dash of salt and pepper and a pinch of maize. To this add the juice from the quahogs. Boil this mixture one-half hour over a slow fire. Chop a quart of quahogs (the juice already has been added to the tomato mixture) and add them and two quarts of medium sliced potatoes to the rest of the mixture. Boil slowly for another half-hour.

I
n most of the shore towns on the north and south shores of Long Island we pride ourselves on the Sea Food. One of our favorite dishes is the famous Long Island Clam Chowder, which is served as a part of a Shore Dinner and also served separately as a light lunch.