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CLAM BROTH (Purchase twelve large clams)
Purchase twelve large clams in the shells. Scrub them thoroughly with a brush, place them in a kettle with one pint of cold water, and cover. As soon as the shells have opened remove them from the broth, and take out the clams, to be served next day in any form desired. Let the broth settle, strain, reheat it, add a little red pepper or paprika (the latter is delicious), and serve hot. Twelve good-sized clams should make enough broth for six persons, but if there does not seem to be sufficient, add a little boiling milk or water. Clam broth seldom needs added salt. Water wafers heated in the oven, or divided Boston crackers toasted upon their broken surfaces, buttered and heated for a few minutes in the oven, are generally served with clam broth. CLAM BROTH WITH WHIPPED CREAM, IN CUPS-(Hot or Cold). For four persons select ten very large clams. Scrub the shells with a brush and cold water, and place them in a kettle with onehalf pint of boiling water. Cover closely and in ten or twelve minutes the clams will have opened and their liquor dripped into the kettle. Remove the shells, pour the broth into a vessel, and strain. Add a little white pepper; and if the broth is too salty, put in more water. When needed, bring the broth to a boil, pour into cups, and upon the center of each cup lay a heaping teaspoon of whipped cream into which has been beaten a little salt and pepper. The cream adds much richness to the flavor of the soup and greatly increases its nourishing properties.
A two-part entry: a plain steamed-clam broth and a cup version finished with savory whipped cream. Both hinge on the clams' own liquor, so the handling of the shellfish matters more than anything else.
- Which clams"Large clams" in an American book of this period most likely means hard-shell clams — quahogs, the size sold today as chowder or large cherrystones. Twelve of them plus a pint of water is what the recipe reckons will serve six, with a little boiling milk or water added if it falls short; the liquor is what carries the flavor, not the water.
- Buy them aliveShells should be tightly closed, or should close when tapped. Discard any that stay gaping, are cracked, or smell of anything but clean seawater. Keep them cold and loosely covered — never sealed in a plastic bag or standing in fresh water.
- Purge the gritThe book relies on scrubbing alone. An hour in cold salted water (about 1/3 cup salt per gallon) before scrubbing lets the clams spit out sand, and saves the broth from grinding underfoot.
- Pull them as they openThe instruction to remove the shells "as soon as" they open is the important one. Clams open over several minutes; lifting each one out as it does keeps the meat tender. The blanket ten-to-twelve minutes given in the second version will toughen the earliest openers.
- Strain properlyLetting the broth settle and pouring off carefully works, but a fine sieve lined with damp cheesecloth or a coffee filter is surer. Leave the last spoonful in the pan whichever method you use.
- The clams kept for tomorrowCooked clam meat should be cooled quickly, refrigerated within two hours, and used within a day — which is what the original intends, though it was written for a cool larder rather than for a modern kitchen counter.
- Salt and dilutionThe note that clam broth "seldom needs added salt" holds; quahog liquor is close to seawater. If it is too strong, dilute with water or hot milk rather than trying to correct it later.
- The whipped creamUnsweetened heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks and seasoned with salt and white pepper. It must be added at the last moment or it slumps into the hot broth.
- The crackersWater wafers are thin, hard, unsalted crackers — water biscuits will do. Boston crackers were thick round common crackers, split through the middle, buttered on the rough cut face and, as the recipe directs, heated in the oven for a few minutes.
Clam broth belongs to a moment when shellfish was considered restorative as much as festive: hot clam juice was sold at soda fountains and served to invalids alongside beef tea, and it turns up in period cookbooks under soups and in the sickroom chapters alike. The second version — served in cups with a spoonful of salted whipped cream, hot or cold — is a turn-of-the-century dinner-party convention, the same trick applied to bouillon and to jellied consommes, and the claim that the cream "greatly increases its nourishing properties" reflects the era's confidence in rich food as medicine. Quahogs were cheap and abundant along the whole northeastern seaboard, which is why a recipe that throws away nothing, saving the cooked meat for the next day's dish, reads as thrift rather than as luxury.