![]() ![]() Many locales outlaw building fires on beaches, and those that do often require permits. The food is allowed to steam for several hours. ![]() Alternating layers of seaweed and food are piled on top, and the entire mound is covered with canvas that has been drenched in water to seal in the heat and prevent the canvas from burning. Side dishes usually include corn on the cob, potatoes, carrots, and onions. The ashes are then swept off the stones and raked between them to form an insulating "bed." A layer of wet seaweed is placed over the stones, followed by traditional regional foods such as steamers, mussels, quahogs, and lobsters. Care must be taken to ensure that the fire will burn out shortly after this optimal cooking temperature is achieved. The fire must burn until the stones are glowing hot. The stones used for cooking are then placed in the center of the pit and a wood fire is started, although the exact method of heating the stones varies. Some prefer to simply start a fire within the pit, while others line the edges with flat stones to provide support for a metal grill on which the stones may be placed. Once the stones and seaweed have been collected, a fire pit is prepared. ![]() Canvas tarps or potato sacks soaked in seawater are often used for this purpose. įinally, like most other methods of steaming, a cover is necessary to allow the trapped heat and steam to thoroughly cook the food. ![]() Method Īlso, important are round medium-sized stones, which are heated in the fire and used to re-radiate heat during the cooking process. The big version is cooked in a sandpit, and the small version is cooked in a large pot on a stove or a grill. The 1975 edition of Joy of Cooking, the perennial best-selling cookbook first published in 1931, describes two versions of a clambake. In 1950, the Maine Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries published a 12-page booklet titled "How to Prepare a Maine Clambake with Lobsters and All the Fixin's". The event, called the "Allen’s Neck Friends Meeting Clambake", was attended by 625 people in 2017. In 1888, a group of Quakers in Dartmouth, Massachusetts held a clambake, which became a traditional annual event each August that continues today. The writer expressed the "firm opinion that clam bakes were glorious institutions." The Cleveland Plain Dealer published an article on October 15, 1866, called "Great Clam Bake at Camp Gilbert: A 'Running Account' Of It". This was the beginning of the popularity of the clambake in the Cleveland area. Īfter the Civil War, railroads began carrying fresh Atlantic seafood on ice from New York through Pennsylvania, Ohio and on to Chicago. The practice spread throughout New England and on to other parts of the country. Rhode Island businessmen operated many clambake pavilions, and the first published clambake recipe credited that state as the origin. The clambake "exploded" in popularity after the American Civil War. Consciously based on indigenous foods, it was developed in the United States after the American Revolution asĪ part of a created mythology as an "icon of its unique cultural identity". The clambake as it is now known does not go back to the colonial period. And though we like to imagine the Wampanoags teaching the Pilgrims how to bake clams, there is good evidence that the early European settlers actually eschewed clams as food fit only for the poor, eating them as little as possible." Perhaps they smoked them for preservation, and they probably roasted them in open fires, but neither oral traditions nor early European observations refer to steaming in rockweed. German concluded, "There is no question that Native American peoples have been consuming clams for four thousand years but there is little evidence that they prepared them in the traditional New England way. The colonists did not consider clams to be an acceptable human food and instead fed clams to pigs, except during times of famine. Contrary to legend, though, American colonists did not learn to enjoy baked clams from Native Americans. It is known that Native Americans in what is now the eastern United States developed techniques to bake (or steam) clams, at least in Florida. Some restaurants and caterers offer clambake-style food. Clambakes are usually held on festive occasions along the coast of New England, and at fundraisers and political events. The shellfish can be supplemented with vegetables, such as onions, carrots, and corn on the cob. The food is traditionally cooked by steaming the ingredients over layers of seaweed in a pit oven. The clambake or clam bake, also known as the New England clambake, is a traditional method of cooking seafood, such as lobster, mussels, crabs, scallops, soft-shell clams, and quahogs. ![]()
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