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To Prepare Clams
Wash and scrub (in several waters) with a stiff vegetable brush two quarts of clams. Place in an agate stew pan, add one-half cup cold water, cover and let simmer until shells open. Remove clams from shells and strain liquor through a napkin. Use only the soft parts of clams.
A component recipe rather than a finished dish: it yields shucked clam meat and strained liquor for chowder, fritters or a sauce. Two things matter most — keeping the clams alive until they hit the pan, and getting every grain of sand out of the liquor.
- Agate stew panAgate (or graniteware) is enamelled steel, used here because it does not react with salt and acid. Any enamelled, stainless or other non-reactive pan works; avoid bare cast iron or unlined copper.
- How many clamsTwo quarts means two quarts in the shell, roughly 2-2½ lb of hard-shell (quahog, littleneck) or soft-shell steamers. Yield varies a good deal with the clams; expect on the order of a cup of chopped meat and a similar quantity of liquor.
- Scrubbing and purgingThe several waters are for grit on the outside. If you also want to purge the insides, hold the clams for 20-30 minutes in cold salted water, about ⅓ cup salt per gallon; plain fresh water kills them and they spoil quickly once dead.
- Live clams onlyDiscard any that are cracked or that stay gaping when tapped. After steaming, discard any that never opened rather than prying them.
- TimingThe recipe gives none. Covered over medium heat with the half cup of water, shells begin opening at 4-5 minutes and most are done by 8. Lift each one out as it opens — clams held past that point turn to rubber.
- Straining the liquorA napkin was the period's filter. Use a double layer of damp cheesecloth or a paper coffee filter, and leave the last spoonful of liquid in the pan, where the sand settles. The liquor is salty; season whatever you make with it at the end.
- "Only the soft parts"On soft-shell steamers, peel the dark sheath off the siphon and discard the tough neck. On hard-shells the adductor muscle and siphon are tough and are often chopped fine for chowder while the bellies are kept whole; Hiller's instruction is simply to discard the tough parts.
- ReheatingWhatever dish these go into, add the meat off the heat or in the last minute. They have already been cooked once.
Elizabeth O. Hiller's Fifty-two Sunday Dinners (1915) assumes a cook who buys clams in the shell and does her own shucking, which is why a basic preparation like this gets an entry of its own to be referenced by the chowders and fritters elsewhere in the book. Steaming clams open rather than knifing them raw is the easier route: it costs a little texture but avoids the knife work. The specified agate pan reflects the period's enthusiasm for enamelled steel ware, marketed heavily from the 1870s onward as clean, light and, unlike iron or copper, safe for salty and acidic foods.