Amuse Bouche: What’s Up With Clambakes?

For the past few weeks, we’ve been seriously immersed in Molly O’Neill’s American Food Writing: An Anthology. Each piece is fascinating reading, but one of our favorites thus far has been Raymond Sokolov’s essay on the Yankee Clambake. We see “clambake” on menus with some regularity (most notably at Anthony’s Pier 4, Durgin Park, Dolphin Seafood, and Summer Shack), but, obviously, those are plates of seafood rather than true clambakes. A real clambake takes place on the beach. Clams, fish, sausage, corn, potatoes, and the occasional lobster are steamed over hot coals and seaweed. The resulting taste is unlike anything else: salty from the seaweed, sweet from the melange of flavors and ridiculously abundant. We’ve only been fortunate enough to experience the real thing once, but once you’ve tried it, it stings mightily to go back to pale imitations. We wish that authentic clambake cuisine was more readily available, but in the meantime, at least we can get more genuine New England food than this:

American Food Writing: An Anthology With Classic Recipes [Amazon]
Raymond Sokolov [Wikipedia]
Semi-Homemade: Sunset Clambake [YouTube: mattislostintv]

Amuse Bouche: What’s Up With Clambakes?