How to Cook a Moose (21 page)

However, despite my love for them, for some reason, during our first year and a half in Portland, our adventures with lobsters were few and far between. In fact, we only had whole lobsters once in all that time.

J's Oyster is a small, low-ceilinged, warm little shack in the Old Port, perched on the end of a wharf, with plate-glass windows looking out at the harbor and bay. The first time we went, the sailboats parked in the slip had a foot of snow on their roofs and the water was dark blue. We went in and sat at the crowded bar. We ordered glasses of rough red wine and were handed paper plates of free Happy Hour oysters. The oysters at J's are working-class mollusks, no-nonsense, nothing fancy, to put it mildly—unlike Maine oysters, which are uniformly excellent and pristine, these blokes come from the Chesapeake Bay and have dirty, knobby shells.

To go with them, we ordered a bucket of steamers. They arrived hot and tender, with bowls of hot steaming liquid and little cups of melted butter.

As we learned from the waitress, who demonstrated for us, this is the most basic way to eat a large Maine steamer: pluck its hot chewy body straight from the shell, take off the black “condom” from its neck, swish it in a little bowl of hot cooking water to wash off the
grit, dip it in melted butter, and slurp it down. Steamers are so meaty, so muscular and chewy and tender and sweet, they remind me of a good steak.

On the day after Thanksgiving after our first year in town, we took our friend Rosie to J's Oyster to meet pals of hers, fellow eaters and drinkers and appreciators of mollusks and bivalves. The five of us crowded around a little table in the back corner. I ordered a double rye on the rocks. Rosie and I sat shoulder to shoulder with our little paper cups of melted butter and feasted on steamers and the big, knobby Chesapeake oysters.

Then our lobsters arrived, small and lurid red, ringed with coleslaw and boiled ears of corn. When we opened them up, we discovered, to our dismay and curiosity, that their body cavities were filled with black goo.

“What's this?” we asked our waitress.

“Oh, that's just their eggs,” she told us, laughing. Clearly, we were not the first diners to wonder. “They just haven't moved down to the tail yet. You can eat 'em.”

“Okay,” we said, and then we devoured our dinners without a second thought. She could have told us anything, really; it would have been hard to spoil our pleasure in those lobsters. They were just the slightest bit overcooked but incredibly sweet, fresh, and delicious. We dismantled them with nutcrackers, picking every fleck of meat from their body cavities, sucking and slurping and digging meat out with our fingertips.

When I finished, melted butter was running down my chin, my hands were covered in lobster juice, and I felt feral. Rosie looked exactly the same way. We grinned at each other. I had poppy seeds in my teeth from the coleslaw, and I didn't care.

Like lobsters, clams are plentiful in Maine. And also like lobsters, they're eaten with gusto, and they're very versatile. You can bake them in the oven, or more traditionally, under seaweed and wet canvas on a beach, with lobsters, potatoes, chourico (Portuguese sausage), and corn.

I first became aware of the existence of clambakes as a sophomore at Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood, Arizona, in 1977, when I played Julie Jordan in the drama club's spring production of
Carousel
, a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that's set in Maine. One of the crowd numbers begins, “This was a real nice clambake, we're mighty glad we came,” and goes on, “Remember when we ate those red-hot lobsters out of a driftwood fire . . .” and continues, “Then at last come the clams, steamed under rockweed and poppin' from their shells . . .” The song always made me hungry, although I had no idea, really, what it was about. I'd never eaten clams or lobster before, but suddenly, I wanted to.

I still have never been to a clambake, but I've learned a little more about them since I've moved up here, and I'm just as interested now as I was at fifteen in experiencing one. Although many people, even Mainers, evidently assume that the clambake originated with the Natives, according to the book
Clambake: A History and Celebration of an American Tradition
by Kathy Neustadt, there is no archaeological evidence to support this supposition. Although Native Americans did roast clams, the clambake as we know it is a purely Yankee invention, and not a colonial one either, since the Puritans regarded such leisurely, decadent outdoor feasts as frivolity.

It wasn't until 1769, at the Old Colony Club in Plymouth, that the humble clam assumed a place in New England festival tradition. That year was the first annual Forefathers' Dinner, a feast commemorating the
Mayflower
pilgrims, and attended by the Club members,
Mayflower
descendants who were primarily Harvard-educated gentlemen and their families. In addition to clams, this first-ever feast had
on its menu “a large baked Indian whortleberry pudding,” “a bowl of sauquetash” (likely an old spelling of “succotash”), oysters, codfish, a haunch of venison, sea-fowl (which I hope was not seagull), frost-fish and eels, apple pie, cranberry tarts, and cheese.

No mention is made of how these clams were cooked, but, according to Neustadt, “this meal, while hardly a clambake itself, established for clam-eating in general a symbolic context and core of meaning that would deepen and intensify in the years that followed.”

The date of the first official modern Yankee clambake is unknown, or at least, not pinpointable, but one possibility is the year 1825, when a Rhode Island schoolteacher named Otis Storrs took a group of children out on a sloop to Rocky Point. He discovered when dinnertime came that they had no provisions, and so he “invented the clambake on the spot.” Within a decade, clambakes had become as regionally popular as socials, dances, fairs, circuses, and picnics. Small private clambakes soon gave way to commercial enterprises.

“Today,” writes Neustadt, “it is possible to argue that every aspect of the clambake—its organization, the food preparation, building the fire, and serving the meal—carries a wealth of symbols.” A clambake combines the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. It often occurs at the end of the summer, commemorating the harvest of the fruits of “the physical and the social world—drawing all that is alive and lively together—before the world grows cold, dark, and barren.”

A communal activity from start to finish, it takes a group of people both to execute and to consume a clambake. First, you dig a fire pit and gather seaweed, along with buckets of seawater to keep the rockweed wet, and a bunch of good-size rocks. Then, once the pit is lined with rocks, you build a wood fire and let it burn until the rocks are glowing hot. It's important to let it burn out completely just as the rocks reach optimal temperature; timing is essential. Then you rake the ashes to make a “bed” to insulate the pit. Over that goes a
layer of seaweed, and then the seafood: mussels, steamers, lobsters, quahogs. Alternating layers of wet seaweed and food are piled in: linguica or chourico sausages, corn, potatoes, carrots, onions. A large canvas, thoroughly soaked in seawater (or sometimes beer), is wrapped over the whole caboodle, and then, while the food steams and bakes, everyone hangs out on the beach, talking and drinking beer and relaxing, for several hours, until it's time to uncover it all and eat.

The chorus of the clambake song in
Carousel
ends: “Our hearts are warm, our bellies are full, and we are feeling prime. This was a real nice clambake, and we all had a real good time!” Apparently, when he wrote the lyrics, Hammerstein had never been to one himself, so he researched the matter and, in so doing, created a visceral paean that evokes a sense of sunburned, happy Mainers on a beach at summer's end in 1873, gorging on the fruits of the sea and land.

And thus a New York Jew inspired a romantic yen for clams in the heart of a teenage Arizona girl who eventually, finally, moved to Maine.

Newcomer's Clam Chowder

As a New Yorker, I loved those tomato-based, celery-heavy Manhattan deli chowders with hot grease floating on top. And I also used to love thick, roux-based New England chowders with oyster crackers—until I learned I could not eat gluten. So I tinkered with these classic recipes to make a thin-yet-rich broth with a savory, chunky soup. This chowder is cheap and easy to make, and takes only an hour or so. It's also very good, if I do say so myself.

First, set out a board of cheese, crackers, and homemade spicy rhubarb pickles—if you happen to have any on hand—to keep your dining companion (note the singular—you won't want to share this with more than one
person) occupied while you cook. Make sure to pour him or her a glass of cold dry white wine (or whiskey) and another for yourself.

In a big covered soup pot with an inch or so of water, steam 24 littlenecks or cherrystones or 12 quahogs. If they don't all open right away, remove the ones that do, rearrange the closed ones for maximum space, cover again, and give them another go-round. When they've all declared themselves, discard the holdouts. Strain and reserve the steaming liquid, about 2 1/2 cups. Coarsely chop the clam meat.

Meanwhile, sauté 1/4 lb. of chopped bacon or pancetta, the fattier the better, in a large cast-iron soup pot over medium flame until it renders its fat and starts to curl up and get crisp. Add 1 yellow onion, minced, and 1 minced garlic clove, and cook for about 8 minutes, stirring every so often.

Add to the pot 1 large diced Yukon Gold potato and 2 ears' worth of fresh corn kernels with the reserved clam liquor (it should be just enough to cover), 2 bay leaves, and black pepper to taste. You won't need salt; the clam liquor and pancetta provide the ideal amount. Simmer, lid on, for 10 to 15 minutes.

When the potatoes are soft, turn off the flame. Add 2 cups of very hot whole milk and the chopped clams and stir well. Cover again, and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes to let the flavors marry, as they used to say.

Serve in 2 big bowls. Eat it all. For dessert, serve fresh berries with cream, and more cold wine.

One late-summer morning, I woke up with a to-do list as long as my arm. Lying there, waking up, I felt no desire to do anything productive at all, all day. In fact, I felt rebellious and lazy. I got dressed
and walked Dingo along the sidewalk in the sparkling, lush, sweet Maine summer morning.

“I don't want to work,” I said when I got home. “I don't want to run errands.”

“Let's go to the beach,” said Brendan, who was clearly in the same mood. “Let's have a picnic.”

Less than four minutes later, we were in the car, bathing suits on under our clothes, wearing our straw beach hats, headed for Cape Elizabeth. Dingo rode in back along with the beach towels.

On the way, we stopped at the lobster shack we call the Mail-Order Bride's because of the busty, artfully made-up Russian woman we assume is married to the owner; she sits behind the counter and rings everything up with a fatally bored, disdainful expression that says, “For this I leave Russia? To work in lobster store and be married to Maine man?”