Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [39]
Certainly clam liquor should be cherished, like oyster and mussel liquor.
CLAM CHOWDER
Being English, and of a tranquil disposition, I hesitate to offer comments on one of America’s sacred institutions. Even to suggest a recipe verges on impiety. But now that we have our own clam-producing beds, I can’t duck the issue, or any missiles that may come my way in consequence. It is strange how the monotheistic spirit has entered the kitchen. Each clam-chowder missionary expects everyone to bow down before his one true recipe (it is the same with Bouillabaisse in France). Tomatoes or no tomatoes? Milk or water? Onions – how many? Fanny Farmer instructs readers to take a pint of hard clams or a dozen large clams and one thinly sliced onion… In response Louis P. de Gouy thunders, ‘A dozen clams forsooth!… Men and women of Rhode Island and Massachusetts Bay never sat down to less than a peck of clams apiece.’ A peck, if I may remind the new metricians, is quarter of a bushel – think of a bushel basket for picking apples – in other words two gallons. They were gods in their appetite, the men and women of those days, cast in a gigantic mould. Here is one of them, Ishmael in Moby Dick, describing his first encounter with chowder at the Try Pots Inn run by Mrs Hosea Hussey in Nantucket: ‘Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter…’
Walt Whitman, too, would have found Fanny Farmer and her Boston School a little on the meagre, ladylike side:
The boatman and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.1
Here, therefore, is Louis P. de Gouy’s recipe from The Gold Cook Book (1948):
‘Take 4 or 5 dozen good soft clams, if your family is a small one… Then take 6 large onions and ½ pound [250 g] of the finest salt pork. Cut the pork in half-inch [1¼-cm] dice and brown them slowly in an iron skillet,2 then add the onion slices to the pork fat and let them turn to golden-brown rings. Meanwhile wash the live clams, using a brush to get rid of all sand, and heat them slowly in a pan till the shells open. Save the juice, cut off the long necks and remove the coarse membrane, then chop half of the clams, not too finely, and keep the rest whole. Put pork, onions, clam juice, and 1 quart of boiling water in a kettle,2 add 3 large peeled tomatoes, 1 bunch of leeks cut finely, 2 stalks of celery, finely minced, 2 young carrots, diced, 1 tablespoon of parsley, chopped, ½ teaspoon of thyme leaves, 2 large bay leaves, 1 teaspoon of salt, ½ generous teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper, a slight grating of nutmeg, and let the mixture boil up smartly. Then reduce to the simmering point, and put in 3 large potatoes, peeled and cut in neat small dice. Prepare a roux by browning 2 rounded tablespoons of flour in 2 rounded tablespoons of butter, and make it smooth and creamy by stirring in broth from the kettle. Put all the clams into the kettle before the potatoes begin to soften, and simmer slowly until the potatoes are just tender, then stir in the roux and 2 large pilot biscuits2 coarsely crumbled, and add 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce and a dash of Tabasco sauce. Serve sizzling hot.
‘If preferred, omit the tomatoes and add instead 1 cup [125 ml/ 4 fl oz] of scalded cream.’
CLAMS FARCIES
As well as the recipes for grilled and stuffed oyster or mussels, try this delicious mixture. Bacon and mushrooms are good with most of the small shellfish.
Serves 6
48 clams
125 g (4 oz) mushrooms
4 slices bacon, crisply cooked
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
breadcrumbs (see recipe)
salt, pepper
butter