Clam Quotes
"We found some large clams...which the storm had torn up from the bottom, and cast ashore. I selected one of the largest, about six inches in length, and carried it. along.....We took our nooning under a sand-hill, covered with beach grass...I kindled a fire with a match and some paper, and cooked my clam on the embers for my dinner.....Though it was very tough, I found it sweet and savory, and ate the whole with a relish. Indeed, with the addition of a cracker or two, it would have been a bountiful dinner." 'Cape Cod' Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
(Soft shell clams were called maninose ['man of noses'] in the Carolinas in 1709.) "Man of Noses are a Shell-Fish commonly found amongst us. The are valued for increasing Vigour in Men, and making barren Women fruitful; but I think they have no need of that Fish; for the Women in Carolina are fruitful enough without their Helps." John Lawson (1709)
“Dainty, chintz-draped tea rooms, charity bazaars, church suppers, summer hotels, canning factories -- all have shamelessly travestied one of America's noblest institutions; yet while clams and onions last, the chowder shall not die, neither shall it sink into the limbo of denatured emasculated forgotten things.” Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)
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