The Humble Clam: The Making of a Culinary Icon
For Colonists, clams were a survival food, consumed during periods of want. New England farmers set their pigs free on the clam-flats to eat their fill, and long line fisherman, trolling for cod off George’s Bank, used clams from the Great Marsh as bait. Today this humble mollusk is a cultural icon and symbol of New England cuisine. This talk will explore how the humble clam, dug from the mud became a culinary icon and symbol of summer in New England. Many consider clams from the Great Marsh to be the best soft shelled clams on the east coast, the perfect ingredient for chowders, clambakes, and of course, they make the best fried clams.
Joe is a public health nutritionist and has been active in the CHoB since year one. Joe is interested in a variety of topics including eating, drinking and entertaining during the Colonial era, the history of the hearth, tavern culture, and food technology. He lives in Ipswich, MA, the clam capital of the world, which explains in part his interest in the history of the clam.
Joe’s first book Cocktails: A Global History is expected to be published by Reaktion Books in 2011.
