Boston Globe: Digging around to serve up clams

[unhappycamper]

Digging around to serve up clams
By Rebecca Mahoney, Globe Correspondent | May 30, 2005

ESSEX -- Before Ellen Pramas orders a plate of fried clams, she wants to know if they're from Ipswich.

She firmly believes no other clam can match the soft, smooth texture and gentle briny taste of an Ipswich clam.

''If you get them from anywhere else, you just don't know if they're going to be as good," said Pramas, 65, of Peabody. ''Ipswich clams are the best."

Whether slathered with hot butter or deep-fried to crunchy, salty perfection, Ipswich clams are Massachusetts's quintessential summer delicacy. But chilly weather and heavy rains this spring have triggered a massive bloom of the algae known as red tide, prompting state environmental officials to shut down shellfish beds from Maine to Cape Cod.

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http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/05/30/digging_around_to_serve_up_clams/

[Demeter]

1. No Fair!

Now that I'm home in the midwest, and far from Boston's fish market, to write about steamers and lobsters is to inflict pain (but not enough to make me go back).

Lobster runs $14/lb here, and steamers are unattainable.

[Warpy]

3. Blech

After 10 years on Cape Cod and extensive bartering with lobstermen and clammers, I'll never eat either lobster or clams again.

Trust me, you can get sick of anything if you're confronted with enough of it.

[woofless]

2. BUMMAH!

We are facing the same situation on the Puget Sound beaches near here. Is it unusual for both coasts to be affected at the same time?

Woof