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Clam Cocktail
1/2 cup tomato catsup 2 tablespoons lemon juice 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 1 tablespoon grated horseradish 1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons onion, minced 24 small clams Mix above ingredients. Remove clams from shells. Mix with above sauce. Chill for ten minutes before serving. Serves 6.
A cocktail-sauce formula from the era when the shellfish cocktail opened almost every dinner party menu. The sauce itself is sound; the clams are the problem, because nothing in the method ever heats them.
- Why the cautionThe clams are shucked raw, dressed, chilled ten minutes and served. There is no step that brings them to a safe temperature, and acid from lemon juice and catsup does not kill pathogens.
- The specific riskRaw clams are filter feeders and concentrate whatever is in their water: Vibrio parahaemolyticus and V. vulnificus, norovirus, and hepatitis A. Vibrio infection can be fatal in people with liver disease or compromised immunity, and no visual or smell check detects any of it.
- Unregulated harvestFor much of the period in which recipes like this circulated, shellfish moved through the trade with less traceable water-quality control than now. Present-day shellfish tags, harvest-area closures and cold-chain requirements grew out of documented outbreaks traced to raw shellfish. If raw clams are wanted, follow current shellfish-safety guidance rather than this text.
- Tabasco quantityA full teaspoon of Tabasco in half a cup of catsup is hotter than most modern cocktail sauces. Worth knowing before scaling up.
- Catsup then and nowCommercial tomato catsups of earlier decades were often thinner and less sweet than today's ketchup, so the modern product may make a sugarier sauce.
- Grated horseradish'Grated' most likely indicates fresh root rather than the bottled product. Bottled prepared horseradish is packed in vinegar, is milder by volume, and adds liquid the sauce was not built for.
- YieldSix servings of four clams each, which tells you how small these portions were.
The shellfish cocktail belongs to the age of the multi-course American dinner, when a chilled first course signalled that the meal was a proper one. Oysters held the position first, and clams were a cheaper and widely available alternative, particularly along the northeastern coast where small hard clams were abundant. The sauce is close to the standard cocktail mixture familiar from the earlier twentieth century: tomato catsup for body and sweetness, lemon and Worcestershire for acid and depth, horseradish and Tabasco for heat, all of them commercial bottled goods that could be kept on a shelf. The recipe asks for no stock, no reduction and no cookery at all beyond opening the clams.