Types and Amounts of Clams in Chowder

[Kent Wang]

All the clam chowder I've had, even the ones from fine restaurants (admittedly, none from New England) have small pieces of chopped up clams. I really like clams. Why not have copious amounts of whole clams in there? Is this against tradition?

Clams aren't even that expensive. A shrimp or crawfish etoufee found around these parts uses more -- in terms of quantity, size of individual pieces, and total ingredient cost -- than clam chowder.

Has anyone ever thought the same thing? Are there crazy iconoclasts in New England making chowder with obscene amounts of clam?

[HungryChris]

Clams are usually run through a meat grinder for many chowders. Some of the sea clams used would not really be that great when encountered whole. I would not want to be the one taking customer complaints if that policy suddenly changed in any New England establishment.

HC

[rooftop1000]

Kent

I think the usual clam in clam chowder is the Quohog which is about the size of your fist. Some fancy places might plate it with a little clam in the shell or two like linguini with clam sauce but its made with the big ones chopped up. I think.

Tracey

[hummingbirdkiss]

you can make that! just make oyster stew with clams!

[Katie Meadow]

Clam chowder in restaurants always disappoints me. Usually the clams are, as you say, skimpy, and also cooked far too long. Boston isn't my style--usually it just seems gummy. Great time of year to make your own Manhattan chowder since there are still good tomatoes to be had. I like Jasper White's recipes for clam chowder; he specifies small quahogs or large cherrystones and the clam prep is the same for both Manhattan and Boston. I've made chowder with all kinds of clams (clams here in CA don't seem quite as good.) Surely there's a thread where passionate devotees duke it out over red vs. white. Boston never crossed my parents' radar, so that's how I am. Provincial.

[rlibkind]

The best clam chowder I ever had was on Mount Desert Island, Maine, cooked by the gentleman from whom I was renting a cottage. But he didn't use quahogs at all -- instead he used the true New England clam, the soft or steamer clam. Not as easy to work with, but it makes a wonderful chowder. And it was cooked in milk, not thickened cream or cornstarch-thickened milk, with just enough potatoes, onions, carrots and celery to round out the flavors and provide contrast.

[Chris Amirault]

Clam chowders are indeed made with quahogs, which when shelled can be about 3-4" in diameter and would be very challenging for most people to eat whole or even halved. Some higher-end places throw in a few little necks for the fun of it, but that's unusual.

However, a good clam chowder will have lots of clams in varying size chunks. Part of the fun of eating a good chowder is matching up clam pieces with appropriate other items -- bacon, potato, onion -- or eating those big meaty chunks on their own.

[Malkavian]

Elijah's in Wilmington, NC suitably impressed me with their red chowder which was (at the time i was there this summer anyway) packed with more meaty clams than I was ever expecting, but I had also thought in the vein of bigger pieces. I don't think I realized that quahogs were the primary ingredient here, guess i was thinking steamers or littlenecks.

Does one not want those whole because of the texture? Seems if it's just size you could reach some compromise with chunks or dice. I for one wouldn't shy from a huge meaty piece of clam but I do see how it could be offputting.

Edited September 13, 2007 by Malkavian (log)

[jayt90]

I make my own with a can of Arctic surf clams, red tipped, from A&P in Canada. They are delicious, and a good substitute for fresh clams. The flavour is subtle, and lost in Manhattan, so I always do New England.

[Katie Meadow]

The best clam chowder I ever had was on Mount Desert Island, Maine, cooked by the gentleman from whom I was renting a cottage. But he didn't use quahogs at all -- instead he used the true New England clam, the soft or steamer clam. Not as easy to work with, but it makes a wonderful chowder. And it was cooked in milk, not thickened cream or cornstarch-thickened milk, with just enough potatoes, onions, carrots and celery to round out the flavors and provide contrast.

←

That does sound lovely, even for an overcommitted red person like myself. Clams demand a fair amount of attention. I'm open to the possibility that loving kindness, along with a light touch, might elevate a New England chowder. Having such a companionable host and chef makes it perfect.

Before he ships out on the doomed Pequod, Ishmael goes for dinner in town. When asked by the proprietor, "Clam or cod?" he imagines being served a plate with one clam on it. So he orders cod. It's chowder, of course. The first of many surprises.

[rooftop1000]

Chris since you mentioned bacon in the clam chowder it reminded me of a pot I made a few years ago when still doing corporate dining.

It was Lent of course and everyone was bugging me all week to make clam chowder for Friday lunch....I started a nice big pot heating with bacon, onions, and celery, grated up some carrot, added a little flour, poured in the milk and the chopped clams and then I remembered you cant have bacon on Fridays during Lent

Cream of Broccoli anyone?

T

[budrichard]

"But he didn't use quahogs at all -- instead he used the true New England clam, the soft or steamer clam."

Both hard shell i.e Quahogs and soft shell i.e steamers are native to New England waters and why anyone would call one 'true', I have no idea?

Steamers are very soft and not ideal for chowder. They are much better eaten steamed (hence the name) right out of the shell with melted butter or fried in a batter. (remember to remove the neck covering!) Steamers have been served this way as long as i can remember.

Quahogs on the other hand range in size from very large and tough, to Cherry stones, smaller and good eating raw to Little Necks, even smaller and even better raw. Using Cherry Stones and Little Necks in a chowder would be a waste of a good raw clam but it can be done. The price of the chowder would increase as the smaller the clam, the more dear the clam is.

Quahogs are chopped and used in chowder for the simple reasons that outside of stuffing and roasting, that's about the only use for a Quahog and chowder is the best and most economical use of the Quahog.-Dick

Edited September 13, 2007 by budrichard (log)

[rlibkind]

"But he didn't use quahogs at all -- instead he used the true New England clam, the soft or steamer clam."

Both hard shell i.e Quahogs and soft shell i.e steamers are native to New England waters and why anyone would call one 'true', I have no idea?

Steamers are very soft and not ideal for chowder. They are much better eaten steamed (hence the name) right out of the shell with melted butter or fried in a batter. (remember to remove the neck covering!) Steamers have been served this way as long as i can remember.

Quahogs on the other hand range in size from very large and tough, to Cherry stones, smaller and good eating raw to Little Necks, even smaller and even better raw. Using Cherry Stones and Little Necks in a chowder would be a waste of a good raw clam but it can be done. The price of the chowder would increase as the smaller the clam, the more dear the clam is.

Quahogs are chopped and used in chowder for the simple reasons that outside of stuffing and roasting, that's about the only use for a Quahog and chowder is the best and most economical use of the Quahog.-Dick

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You're right, of course: both of these bivalves are clams. And I concur that the steamer is best steamed (I skip the butter, broth is plenty for me) or fried. And the larger hard clams are best used in chowdah.

I picked up the facetious "true" modifier from one of my seafood bibles -- I'll try to check and post the reference, though it might have been Mitchum.

[rlibkind]

But he didn't use quahogs at all -- instead he used the true New England clam, the soft or steamer clam.

Both hard shell i.e Quahogs and soft shell i.e steamers are native to New England waters and why anyone would call one 'true', I have no idea?

I picked up the facetious "true" modifier from one of my seafood bibles -- I'll try to check and post the reference, though it might have been Mitchum.

←

The reference to "true" clam indeed derives from Howard Mitcham's The Provincetown Seafood Cookbook (Reading MA: 1975), though his phrasing is different:

And be careful what you call him. South of Massachutts and Rhode Island, from New York and New Jersey on town to Maryland, they call him a clam, but in New England clam usually means the softshell steamer clam, Mya arenaria, and no real Cape Codder would ever call a quahag a clam . . .

As for which clam makes the best chowder, Mitcham plays no favorites:

They all make excellent chowder, and so does the humble razor clam, if you can find enough of them."

I certainly wouldn't argue with Mitcham, whose back cover photo shows him in a menacing pose holding a rather large chef's knife. No wonder Bourdain got the hell out of his kitchen.

[slkinsey]

Well, as someone who grew up in New England, I have to concur that we wouldn't call a quahog a clam. We'd call it a quahog. But, at the same time, we'd certainly call a littleneck a clam, despite the fact that it's technically just a smaller quahog.

[Katie Meadow]

From a quick visit to easily accessible websites, especially those designed by people in Rhode Island, the hard-shell clams we are talking about are all members of the same species, Mercenaria mercenaria, unbelievable as that may be. You guessed it, the nomenclature supposedly derives from the original value of the shells in trade.

The names of various clams are simply a shorthand guide to size: little necks being the smallest, then topnecks, then cherrystones, and finally the biggest, quahogs. On the chowder/chowdah cook-off thread there is a good photo of a quahog sitting on an open hand. From what I gather, you can legitimately call it a quahog if it covers your palm and you can't close your fist on it.

Hard-shell clams are most prevalent between Cape Cod and New Jersey, but the state of RI seems to have a personal sense of pride in being the home of the quahog, and every August they have a Quahog festival to prove it. All this research is only serving to make me a little homesick. In CA I can buy small Manilla clams, which I think are most often used in Clams with Black Bean Sauce, and sometimes ones that are a little bigger and work okay for Linguini a la Vongole, but I think these clams are less flavorful. I've certainly never seen anything here as hunky as a quahog. It goes without saying there are no long-neck steamers here, and that's truly sad.

[Fat Guy]

Well, as someone who grew up in New England, I have to concur that we wouldn't call a quahog a clam.  We'd call it a quahog.  But, at the same time, we'd certainly call a littleneck a clam, despite the fact that it's technically just a smaller quahog.

←

It's weirder still because nobody calls it "quahog chowder." Chowder made from quahogs is called "clam chowder."

I was just up in (on?) Cape Cod, however, and I did see a couple of fish markets that called the quahogs "chowder clams." The signs read something like "Chowder Clams (Quahogs)" or "Quahogs (Chowder Clams)" -- that sort of thing.

Incidentally, in 1981, a reader wrote in to the New York Times and asked "Can you make a genuine clam chowder with small clams such as littlenecks and cherrystones?" and Craig Claiborne answered thus. (After explaining the taxonomy of hard clams, he answered in the affirmative.)

[Jensen]

I've certainly never seen anything here as hunky as a quahog. It goes without saying there are no long-neck steamers here, and that's truly sad.

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Are geoducks available here? Those are the clams I grew up with; the shells of the big ones can double as small passenger vehicles.

[Katie Meadow]

Yes, geoducks do live on the northern CA coast. Did you used to catch them? And did you use them for chowder?

For those unfamiliar with this clam, they are very hard to catch, so they are not marketed regularly. They bury themselves quite deep in the sand, and you have to be very fast to grab hold of the long neck before they retract it. The necks can grow to be up to a yard long and a geoduck is considered to have reached old age at about 140 years! Where we stay on the north side of Tomales Bay early morning clamming trips (you gotta take a short boat ride) are advertised sometimes during low tides. I believe that locals who manage to catch them do use the necks for chowder. I've been offered locally caught eel (fabulous), but never geoduck, and I might hesitate to eat it, since I've been looking at the same giant geoduck clam pickled in a jar in the entryway of the general store for at least the last 20 years. That one must have been 200 years old if it was a day.

[Jensen]

Yes, geoducks do live on the northern CA coast. Did you used to catch them? And did you use them for chowder?

←

Yes and yes.

Once a year, we'd go up Island for a couple of weeks and we always went clam digging. The little clams we got were put on a rack on the bonfire at night but the big geoducks were destined for the pot.

My dad had made a special shovel for digging them (he was a machinist); he called it a clam gun. I don't know if that is a real name for clam digging shovels or not but it made getting the geoducks slightly easier.

[budrichard]

Geoducks are best used as sashimi and sushi and are termed Muragai by the Japanese. They are suprisingly available live in Chicago. Not inexpensive though!

Run a knife around the inside of ths shel to release the Geoduck. Cut off the siphon and blanch in boiling water briefly and then into an ice water bath. the thin outside membrane can then be removed easily. Slice the siphon in half lengthwise and then use in your preperation. Traditional Japanese Chefs make cuts along the long axis of the siphon just a little ways through. The siphon is then sliced perpendicular to the long acis in 1/4" strips. The Chef will then slam the cut piece down on the cutting board and as it contracts due to muscle fiber movement, say, " See, alive!", getting great fun out of impressing the diners.

Anyway, Geoducks, steamers, razor, quahogs, manila or what have you, clams are GOOD!-Dick

[Fat Guy]

Morimoto's recipe for clam chowder calls for 60 Manila clams for 4 servings.

[slkinsey]

And let's not forget the Ducasse/Psaltis trick of making a clam chowder base out of pureed clams. I think they used razor clams for the puree, probably as much for the color as the flavor (I've done this using pureed quahogs for the base, and while it was delicious, the color was a bit murky).