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Steamed Clams
Wash and scrub clam shells; place in kettle; add water, allowing 1/2 cup water for each peck of clams. Cover kettle and cook until shells open. Serve hot with the following sauce: 3 tablespoons Crisco, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 4 tablespoons chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste. Cream Crisco and add remaining ingredients. Kettle should be removed from range as soon as shells open, otherwise clams will be over cooked.
A bare-bones steaming method from a Crisco-sponsored menu book, with a shortening-based dipping sauce in place of drawn butter. The instruction that matters is the last one: pull the kettle off the heat the moment the shells gape.
- A peck of clamsA peck is 8 dry quarts, on the order of 10 lb of clams in the shell. The half cup of water is minimal by design: the clams release their own liquor and effectively steam themselves.
- Which clam"Steamed clams" in an American book of this date means soft-shell steamers or small hard-shell littlenecks. Either works; steamers need their dark neck sheath peeled off at the table, littlenecks do not.
- Purge the sandScrubbing the shells is not enough for steamers. Soak them in cold salted water for 20-30 minutes and lift them out rather than pouring, leaving the grit behind.
- TimingFive to ten minutes over high heat, depending on size and quantity. Shells open in stages, so check at five minutes and remove the kettle as soon as most are open, as the recipe warns.
- Discard the closed onesAny clam that stays shut after steaming should go in the bin. The reverse also holds: discard any that is already gaping and will not close when tapped before cooking.
- The sauceCrisco creamed with lemon juice was the sponsor's substitute for butter and sets to a pale paste. Melted butter with the lemon, parsley and cayenne gives the traditional result; "red pepper" here means cayenne, not paprika or chile flakes.
- Save the brothThe liquor left in the kettle is the best part. Strain it and serve it in cups alongside, or use it to rinse the clams free of any last grit as you eat.
This comes from a promotional menu book of the Crisco era, when the newly hydrogenated vegetable shortening was being pushed as a stand-in for butter and lard in every course, including a sauce where butter had reigned unchallenged. The dish itself is much older than the sauce: steaming soft-shell clams in their own liquor is often described as the domestic form of the New England clambake, and by the late nineteenth century "steamers" with drawn butter and a cup of broth are generally said to have been standard shore-dinner fare from Maine to Long Island. What dates the recipe most is the unit: clams bought by the peck.