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Clam Cocktail
Follow either of the recipes for oyster cocktails, using little neck clams.
A cross-reference rather than a standalone recipe: the clam version borrows whatever cocktail sauce the book gives for oysters. Everything hinges on the clams themselves, since nothing is cooked.
- Little necksLittlenecks are the smallest commonly marketed grade of hard-shell clam (Mercenaria mercenaria), roughly 1.5-2 inches across and around 8-12 to the pound depending on the dealer. Larger grades are tougher raw and more often go to chowder.
- The period cocktail sauceOyster cocktail sauces in books of this era typically combine tomato catsup, grated horseradish, lemon juice, a little Worcestershire and a few drops of Tabasco, sometimes with a spoonful of vinegar. Modern bottled cocktail sauce is broadly similar, usually sweeter.
- Buying and holdingBuy live, tagged clams from a dealer, keep them cold in an open container under a damp cloth rather than sealed in a bag, and discard any shell that stays open when tapped. Shuck within a day of purchase and serve at once.
- Raw is rawRaw shellfish carries a real risk of Vibrio and norovirus, and the risk is not one that lemon juice or hot sauce reduces. Not suitable for pregnant women, young children, the elderly, or anyone immunocompromised or with liver disease.
- ShuckingHard-shell clams are stiffer than oysters; a short, blunt clam knife worked into the seam opposite the hinge is safer than an oyster knife. Save the liquor and add a spoonful to each glass.
- Serving vesselCocktails of this kind were commonly served in a small stemmed glass set in cracked ice. A chilled coupe or small tumbler on a bed of ice does the same job.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; six clams a head is a reasonable first-course serving, a dozen a light lunch, with sauce to taste.
The seafood cocktail belongs to the American restaurant era of the late nineteenth century, when an iced glass of raw oysters under a sharp red sauce became a fashionable opening course; its invention is sometimes traced to San Francisco, though the story is traditional rather than documented. Clams followed oysters onto the menu, being cheaper and, on the Atlantic coast, widely available, and by the time this book was compiled the substitution was routine enough that a cookbook could dispose of it in one sentence.