grasswire (43,252 posts) Tue Jun 23, 2015, 11:31 PM
Does anyone here do a clambake for a group?
We are thinking of that for family beach gathering at my cousin's beach house. Would like to do a New England style bake because we are celebrating our Connecticut and Long Island ancestors. I see that Martha Stewart recommends making individual parcels in cheesecloth for steaming and easy serving.
Any hints?
JayhawkSD (1,804 posts) Wed Jun 24, 2015, 12:59 AM
1. For heaven's sake don't do packets.
The whole idea of a clambake is to let all of the various items cook together so that flavors mingle. Doing Martha Stewart's silly packet thing will be neat and tidy and will utterly defeat the purpose of doing a clambake.
Wikipedia has a pretty good description. The specific items are relatively unimportant, it is the general method which matters, and even that is fairly imprecise.
Galileo126 (936 posts) Wed Jun 24, 2015, 12:11 PM
2. I agree with JayHawk (above)
Everything should be cooked together, minding of course the cooking times of each component (what goes in first...last, etc.)
Martha Stewart is still stuck on Emily Post's view of dining etiquette. Clambakes, like crab boils and crawfish boils, should be messy - and fun!!
Ideally, clambakes are done over large areas of coals and hot rocks with seaweed and burlap as covers to keep the steam in. But then again, only folks who live near the coast will have access to large amounts of seaweed.
Naw, just cook everything in large pots, bring the pots to the outdoor picnic table, and start it dishing out to everyone. Make sure to provide things (large bowls, etc) for shells, corn cobs, 10,000 dirty napkins, and other waste.
Most of all - have fun!! Best of luck, grasswire!
pinto (106,669 posts) Wed Jun 24, 2015, 12:23 PM
3. I grew up with the traditional clambake mentined. Layered seaweed, shellfish, over red hot rocks.
Final layer of seaweed covered with soaked burlap. We used sand to seal the edges of the burlap all around. Usually added corn on the cob to the shellfish.
If you want to do a boil, suggest using the largest pot you can handle and using seawater, not salted tap water. Have a great one!
grasswire (43,252 posts) Wed Jun 24, 2015, 02:27 PM
4. well, we will be at my cousin's beach house....
....but it's on a bluff about 40 feet above the beach, so I think we will be doing it on the deck in giant pots. We should be able to get seaweed, but actually now clams might be a problem because of the warm weather and the bacteria that brings. Currently the local beaches are closed because of that. And we sure don't want to buy non-local clams. So we may have to shelve the idea for another time unless that improves in the next three weeks.
Thanks everyone for the comments about Martha Stewart's packets. Good advice.
The pinto-beaner primitive
If you want to do a boil, suggest using the largest pot you can handle and using seawater, not salted tap water. Have a great one!
Would like to do a New England style bake because we are celebrating our Connecticut and Long Island ancestors.
grasswire (43,252 posts) Tue Jun 23, 2015, 11:31 PM
Does anyone here do a clambake for a group?
The 1924 Democratic National Convention, also called the Klanbake,[1] held at the Madison Square Garden in New York City from June 24 to July 9, 1924, took a record 103 ballots to nominate a presidential candidate. It was the longest continuously running convention in United States political history. It was the first major party national convention that saw the name of a woman, Lena Springs, placed in nomination for the office of Vice President. It was also known for the strong influence of the Ku Klux Klan. John W. Davis, initially an outsider, eventually won the presidential nomination as a compromise candidate following a virtual war of attrition between front-runners William Gibbs McAdoo and Al Smith.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Democratic_National_Convention
Do they ever!
The Klanbake, an old democrat party tradition.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Democratic_National_Convention
edited to add that I am disgusted by Judy's racist code word dog whistle.
Take my advice...
If you don't know what you are doing when making a clambake (and its obvious you don't) then don't do it at all. You WILL ruin the meal. - So, either go with a clamboil, or better yet, steamed clams if you can find a great, big steamer pot you can toss everything into.
Do not use seawater or seaweed. Doing so is just dumb. The clams as well as other various meats are salty enough as is. If you must, add some sea salt ( from a supermarket, not the ocean ) to the boiling water.
Excuse my total ignorance on the subject, but clams aren't anything that ever inspired my interest.
As old as I am, not even for ten seconds in this whole entire life, have I paid attention to clams.
Anyway.
I was always under the impression clams were an east coast phenomenon, that maybe clams don't even exist on the west coast. An Atlantic phenomenon, not a Pacific one. I've never in my life heard of anyone from California or Oregon or Washington doing clams; they've always been people from New England down to North Carolina or something.
So my impression is we've got all these Oregonians, descendants of Judy grasswire, wanting to be hip, cool, trendy, with it, "eastern," getting the clams at the grocery store.
I've also learned that the Softshell Clam (what is common to New England) has been introduced to the west coast and they now live among the other species native to the Pacific.
She should stick with the Bearded Clam bake at 98.6 degrees F.
^^^is this a good idea? Has anyone trying to play God ever thought there might be a reason that sort of clam never existed on the west coast, and that it'd be a good idea to leave it alone?
I mean, look at what happened to Australia, after some damn fool took a couple of rabbits there.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but if some rectal aperture dares introduce a fish alien to the waters here, the county sheriff and other law enforcement comes down hard.
grasswire (43,252 posts) Wed Jun 24, 2015, 02:27 PM
4. well, we will be at my cousin's beach house....
....but it's on a bluff about 40 feet above the beach, (lazy bitch) so I think we will be doing it on the deck in giant pots. We should be able to get seaweed, but actually now clams might be a problem because of the warm weather and the bacteria that brings. Currently the local beaches are closed because of that. And we sure don't want to buy non-local clams. So we may have to shelve the idea for another time unless that improves in the next three weeks.