![]() We did find one good show, though, and that’s all that mattered. Even the geoduck-sniffing dogs were getting blanked. What’s more, a breezy chop was causing wave action that muddied the water and had the geoducks mostly hunkering down into their lairs. In this case, the water wasn’t draining off the flats the way one would normally expect for such a low tide. Barometric pressure, I learned, can cause a tide to lose its edge. I’ll be here all week.) This presented some problems. (No doubt you’ve heard about Seattle’s two seasons: winter and August. On Sunday we had a -3 foot low tide to get excited about but wouldn’t you know the first heat wave of the season had passed by and a new marine layer (wonky weatherman-speak for shitty weather) was moving in. These low-low summer tides are generally the most pleasant time to dig a three or four foot hole on the beach and wrestle a horseneck out of the mud. They were especially keen to sample what the old-timers politely call horseneck, so we saddled up the whole FOTL gang in our trusty Folksvagen and rode a ferry over to the far side of Puget Sound with a Hood Canal geoduck in mind. Mare TV is in town, taking in the Seattle waterfront and its multi-splendored offerings of scenery, food, and fun. Or his first German TV documentary shoot… Great geoducks, Batman!Ī boy never forgets his first ‘duck. This entry was posted in clamming, clams, geoduck, recipes on Jby Langdon Cook. Serve the vegetables over rice and topped with the fried clam. Stir the sauce as it thickens, then add scallions and sesame oil.ĥ. Add stock and bring to boil, then add the prepared sauce ingredients. Stir-fry garlic and ginger for 30 seconds. Add 3 tablespoons peanut oil to wok over medium heat. After carefully disposing fry oil, quickly make sauce. Batter and fry sliced clams until golden, then remove to paper towels. Batter should be thick add more corn starch if necessary. Add enough oil to wok to fry sliced clam in batches. In wok over high heat, stir-fry onion and bell pepper with a tablespoon of peanut oil for 2 minutes or so, until starting to soften. In a small bowl mix together sugar, salt, black vinegar, soy sauce, and corn starch. Bad call! Best to pour on the sauce when you’re ready to serve.ġ/2 pound geoduck, sliced into thin stripsġ. My one big mistake: I added the clams, already fried and crispy, back into the wok at the end to get them thoroughly coated with sauce, which turned them instantly soggy. I gave a nod to the Americanized version by adding onions and bell pepper. But sweet and sour, when done the right way, is a time-honored amalgam of flavors in the Far East and I decided it would make a good match for deep-fried geoduck. That gooey radioactive pink sauce is too weird even for me. Let me just say up front that I never order Sweet and Sour anything at Chinese restaurants. I decided to deep fry the remainder of last week’s geoduck clam for Sweet and Sour ‘Duck. I was thinking about this dearth of clam bar culture when I decided I’d bow to the Pacific Rim inclinations of my town and try to marry those leanings to a more down-home greasy spoon approach. An enterprising soul should be able to open a seaside shanty with local beer and lots of seafood and turn it into a destination. We have razor clams, littleneck clams, butter clams, horse clams, a variety of oysters, Dungeness crab, spot shrimp, and so on, not to mention the infamous geoduck. Still, even if the clams are different you would think the abundance of seafood in the Northwest would promote more than the occasional touristy fish and chip parlor. In addition to steamer clams ( Mya arenaria, aka Eastern softshells), the Atlantic boasts another species not native to the Pacific, the quahog ( Mercenaria mercenaria), and with it an entire category: clams on the half-shell, which is to say raw clams. Population density, I heard someone say, but the Puget Sound region is now pushing five million people, certainly enough to warrant a few well established hole-in-the-wall shellfish shrines.Īnother possibility is the clam fare itself. The sad truth is we don’t have mom and pop clam shacks here, not in any discernible numbers. ![]() And please, don’t try to sell me on Ivar’s. A recent New York Times article about East Coast clam culture got me wondering: Why no clam shacks around Puget Sound? Day-trip to a beach near New York City or Boston or anywhere along the Jersey Shore and you’re bound to stumble on a weathered, low-slung joint where the beer is cold and the clams are fresh.
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