Onions in the Stew

by Betty Macdonald

  Then one morning it was spring. The willows blew in the sunshine like freshly washed golden hair. The white hyacinths bloomed. The cherry trees were frothy with blossoms. We had our first steamed clams and fell in love with Vashon all over again.

  Digging clams on your own beach is a special thing. An unexpected dividend, like having a beautiful daughter who can also divine water. I remember that first Saturday morning in April when we were awakened by the sun pouring in the window and lying on our bedroom floor in golden pools. I remember the sea gulls playing tag against a delphinium-blue sky and the Sound glittering in the sun like a broken mirror. The tide was far out, past the eel grass, and the sand steamed in the sunlight and was warm on our bare feet.

  “Wait until they squirt,” Don cautioned Anne and me, but we couldn’t. We dug huge holes in the wrong places and found only cockles or “Indian clams” as they are called around here. Don and Joan wisely waited for squirts and got big sweet butter clams. Dotting the sand at intervals like open mouths were sea anemones which obligingly sprayed our feet when we stepped on them but infuriated us by pretending to be clams.

  Occasionally, while I was digging and Anne was picking up, long worms hunched their way out of the sand. Some of these were cream colored, flat and corrugated like grosgrain ribbon; some were thin and springy and red like copper wire; some were pale and smooth and slimy and almost three feet long like intestines. Don and Joan thought they were interesting and callously picked them up and examined them, Anne shrieked and shuddered and covered her eyes and I gulped and turned away. Some of them, I believe the clam worm is one, leave their delicate little white lime houses like stems of clay pipes, behind them on the sand. Over the years Don and Joan tried these worms for fishing but said they weren’t very satisfactory.

  While we were digging the butter clams we found a few jackknife clams which are the exact size and shape of a jack-knife and have a smooth shell covered with a firm, glistening golden brown skin like tortoise shell; also several enormous horse clams, one of them weighing about three pounds. We discarded these because we wanted the jackknife clams to multiply and we knew from experience the horse clams were slimy and strong. When we had our bucket half full of butter clams we walked down past the old dock where the beach is rocky and the Little Neck clams flourish.

  The main difference in appearance between the butter or Washington clam and the Little Neck is the marking on the shell. The butter clam’s thick heavy shell is pale and smooth except for the circular ridges of growth. The shell of the Little Neck clam is smaller and thinner, is dark gray or brown, and has in addition to the growth ridges, distinct grooves that radiate from the beak of the shell. The meat of the butter clam is thick and pink and slightly tough. The Little Neck is small and plump and white and tender. Little necks are near the surface and close to the tide line. To get at them we had first to move several tons of surface rocks, then with a potato hook, claw among the buried rocks. Each time we lifted a rock we exposed a nest of little purple shore crabs who panicked in the sunlight and ran around in circles and into each other like people during an earthquake.

  After we had removed the crabs and Joan had picked up one and chased Anne with it and Anne had obligingly shrieked, we scratched in the rocks until we uncovered the Little Necks which seemed to grow in clusters of four and five. For steaming we preferred them small so we reburied any larger than an inch and a half.

  One of the troubles with clam digging is that you can’t stop. There is always one more place you must try. When we had our bucket full Joanie said, “Before we go let’s try just one dig over by that big rock.” So we filled our pockets. Then Andy wanted to try down close to the water “just once.” Then Don saw a lot of squirts right by the dock and pretty soon we had not only the bucket but a small wooden box full and were so tired we had to rest on a log before starting home.

  That’s another thing about clam digging. In the excitement of the chase you usually dig up more territory than if you were spading up a large vegetable garden, to say nothing of lifting tons of rocks. The tiredness doesn’t really set in until you start the walk home carrying the clams, then you feel as if you had forgotten to take off your diving shoes.

  I believe that steamed clams should be served hot with melted butter and only melted butter. The flavor of freshly dug clams is very delicate and is ruined by the addition of Worcestershire Sauce, garlic or vinegar. With steamed clams we like only hot buttered toast and adults. It takes an almost fanatical affection for children or clams to put up with the “What’s this little green thing, Mommy? Do we eat this ugly black part? Do you think this is a worm?” that always accompanies any child’s eating of clams. In addition to the company of adults we advocate plenty of clams—at least half a gallon per person.

  By the way, the way to get the sand out of clams is to let them stand in sea water for an hour or so. For years I was told to “put them in fresh water and cornmeal.” All clams have ever done for me in this concoction is to stick out their tongues and hold on to all their sand.

  A good recipe for a quick delicious Clam Chowder which we have evolved over the years is:

  At least four cups of butter clams cut out of the shell and washed thoroughly.

  Grind with the clams:

  1 green pepper

  1 bunch green onions

  6 slices of bacon

  2 large peeled potatoes

  1 bunch parsley

  Put everything in a large kettle, add one cube of butter and enough water to cover. Cook slowly until the potatoes are done. Add two or three large cans of milk, salt and coarse ground pepper to taste. Serve, as soon as the milk is hot, with buttered toast.

  Another good thing to do with clams, especially butter clams is—Clam Fritters:

  Peel and grate and let soak in cold water overnight—3 large potatoes. The next morning drain the potatoes, put in a large bowl and add:

  3 well beaten eggs

  4 tbsps flour—more if they don’t hold together—a lot depends on the potatoes

  1 grated onion

  ½ tsp or so of salt

  coarse ground pepper

  2 cups ground clams

  ½ cup finely chopped parsley

  Cook on a griddle in bacon fat. Serve with butter and crisp bacon.

  We were proud that we had the best clam beach in this small community and were delighted to share it with our neighbors, even with occasional strangers. One summer morning two prim little old maiden ladies, carrying a shoebox lunch, knocked on the kitchen door, explained shyly that they had walked the trail from the dock and asked permission to have a picnic on our beach. “We won’t leave a scrap of rubbish,” they promised. “We don’t smoke or drink and we will not start a fire.” A little later one of them knocked again and said that she had seen some clams squirting and would I allow her to buy three if she dug them. I told her we would love to give her the clams and loaned her a bucket and a shovel. Some hours later she and her friend, quite red-faced and wet around the hems, proudly showed us the eight clams they had dug.

  The next day on the ferry I was telling a man who lives at the other end of the island about these quaint old ladies. He said, “By God, nobody is going to dig clams on my beach. I bought the property and I pay taxes on it and I’ve got a shotgun to protect it. Last Sunday they had some sort of church picnic next door and the kids kept coming over on my beach and, by God, I went up to the house and got my gun and I said, ‘This is my property and I’ll shoot any trespassers!’ Believe me those kids got off in a hurry.”

  I said, “But I feel so sorry for people who live in the city and don’t have a beach and clams.”

  “Sorry nothing,” he said. “If they’re so crazy about the beach, let them buy a piece of property. I bought mine and I pay taxes. . . .”

  I am happy to say that I have met very few islanders with this man’s miserable viewpoint. He belongs to a small coterie who at one time made an abortive attempt to keep Vashon Island a “rich man’s par
adise,” which term has always seemed to my poverty-ridden ears to be extremely paradoxical.

  During the time when the ferry company was raising the rates every half hour or so and we were all complaining, another member of this public-spirited group said, “Glad to see the rates going up. Hope they make it so damned expensive all the rabble will have to move off.” By rabble I assumed he meant us unfortunates with mortgages and without Cadillacs.

  In addition to clams, our beach offers us on occasion geoducks, sea cucumbers, squid, crabs, piddocks, cockles and mussels. There are also scallops and shrimps but they are so far out it is easier to buy them from the scallop and shrimp boats for a dollar a bucket. Geoducks are found only at the lowest tide, are scarce, and digging them requires quick action and enormous tenacity. There is a game limit on geoducks—so many per person per season—I don’t know what it is but I’m no more worried about exceeding it than I am about getting too many dinosaurs.

  One June morning during the lowest tides of the year, Anne and Joan and Don and I were moseying along the edge of the water looking for Mossy Chitons—funny little things about the size of and color of field mice, that cling to rocks and with dorsal plates shaped like butterflies and in wonderful colors of turquoise-blue, pale yellow, chestnut-brown and white—and Giant Chitons which are bright red, look like apples, used to be eaten by the Indians and Don wanted to try one. Suddenly Joanie who was in the lead yelled, “Geoduck! Hurry!”

  We ran, but on tiptoe so as not to warn the geoduck who had his huge siphon or neck sticking out of the sand like a periscope. As soon as we reached the spot, Joanie knelt down and got a good grip on the geoduck’s neck, Don and I started digging with our hands and Anne ran home for the shovel. The geoduck was close to the edge of the water and the sand was mushy and not too difficult to dig with bare hands if you discount the fact that our fingernails were up to our wrists by the time Anne brought the shovel. You can’t ever rest when you are digging a geoduck so Anne relieved Joan at the neck, Don began to dig with the shovel and Joan and I with our hands, followed the neck down into the sand and water digging with our fingers as we tried to find the shell.

  The hole in which Joan and Anne and I were kneeling was about six feet in diameter, at least three feet deep and filled with water, when I finally felt the edge of the shell. I shouted at Don who rushed to my side, slipped his hand along the siphon which the geoduck had been drawing farther and farther down into the sand, until he felt the shell, then he took up where I had left off. My job then was to shovel as fast as I could around the edge of the hole while Anne held on to the neck. Joan bailed with an old coffee can and the tide hurried in with billions of gallons more water. We were all fully dressed in jeans and sweatshirts and all wet to our armpits, and covered with mud and sand. Some neighbor children came by in a rowboat, saw that we were working on a geoduck and spread the word along the beach. People began coming up to watch, until we had an audience of fifteen or so. We spoke but didn’t dare stop because of the tide. We kept taking turns holding on to the neck. The hole was the size of a crater and it was almost noon when at last with a terrific sucking noise, Don pulled out the geoduck.

  It was a big one. The oblong shell, covered with a dirty, yellow, wrinkled skin, was about seven inches long and five inches wide. It must have weighed at least five pounds. After everyone in our audience had examined it and told us how they cooked geoduck, how their Aunt Eunice cooked geoduck, why they didn’t like geoduck, etc., we took it home, cut it out of the shell, skinned the neck and removed the stomach. Then I put the geoduck meat along with a dozen soda crackers and a handful of parsley through the food chopper using the fine blade, added a couple of well-beaten eggs and some coarse ground pepper and made the result into patties which I sautéed in butter. They were heavenly, with a sweet nutty flavor somewhere between scallop and abalone.

  I speak very lightly of squid being part of our obtainable sea food. Actually the only squid I have eaten have been bought in the Farmer’s Market in Seattle. Several times when we were down by the old dock trolling for perch we hooked small octopus and squid (the difference is that the octopus has eight arms and the squid ten) but nobody including Don ever had the sadistic impulse to bring it into the boat with me. When I buy squid they have already been peeled and gutted and are limp and white. Sautéed in butter for not more than one minute on each side, they are tender and have a delicate flavor akin to a scallop. Cooked too long they assume the exact flavor and texture of a sautéed rubber glove.

  In spite of having heard several sea-food fanatics claim they are “absolutely divine,” no one in our family has ever eaten sea cucumbers. Our trouble seems to be that we can’t hurdle their appearance which is not like a cucumber, but is like an enormous red spiny slug.

  Piddocks are clams with some sort of neurosis that makes them afraid to face life. Instead they burrow into the hard clay or sandstone along our shores. As the deeply imbedded anterior end of their shell is larger than the posterior (copied from the clam book), once in they are entombed for life unless some innocent armed with a mattock happens along and thinks he has found a geoduck the way Don and the girls and I did. We chipped for hours in the hot June sun before we finally unearthed the piddock, medium-sized and smashed. We were so disappointed we didn’t even bring it home. Don’s opinion is that if they tasted like a combination of truffles and hundred-year-old brandy, piddocks could not be worth the effort.

  Crabs are plentiful and good-sized but our crab traps either get bogged down with starfish or, having been set by glackity adolescents who don’t know how to tie knots, are carried away by the tide. In the middle of the summer, the medium-sized crabs come close enough to shore to be netted from a rowboat, but we only do this for fun, because eating them is too much like putting mayonnaise on a spider for my taste.

  I believe that we are the only ones on this beach who eat the delicious cockles. Mussels are abundant but like mushrooms, some are poisonous and some are not, and I’m not enough of a zoologist or sport to take a chance.

  Our local shrimps are small and tough and in no way compare to either Alaska or Gulf shrimp. Our scallops are smaller than the eastern variety but are very delicious and certainly much cheaper.

  By going out in the rowboat we get sole, blackmouth (baby King salmon), silver salmon, cod, Spanish mackerel, red snapper and perch. In the fall for a dollar, or sometimes two if they are very large, we can row out and buy big salmon from the fishing boats.

  When we first moved here we were told by some expert fisherman that by spinning on the incoming tide, we could catch silvers. What with one thing and another we didn’t get around to testing this theory until a year or so ago when I was having some publicity pictures taken. As usual, we were vainly trying to think of some pose a little more arresting than the usual arms grasping opposite elbows and toothy smile so dear to the book jackets of female authors, when I remembered about spinning for silvers. The photographer was overjoyed but Don said, “It’s no use. The tide is going out and they won’t bite.”

  I said, “Oh, what difference does that make! The fact that I’m casting is the important thing.”

  Don said, “You’ll just look ridiculous because it will be obvious to everybody that the tide is going out.” Also that I don’t know how to cast.

  But the photographer, who was tired, said he didn’t think it mattered that much, so we went down to the beach and I made one cast and caught a silver about twelve inches long. Since then we have spun and spun (if that is the expression) at exactly the moment when the tide is changing, but we have never had a bite.

  Also edible, and for nothing, on our own property are blackberries, salmon berries, huckleberries, both blue and red, watercress, Chinese pheasants and mushrooms. The mushrooms, the delicious, easily identified Shaggy-Manes, are plentiful, but one time I decided to try a new kind. The new kind, also plentiful, were a soft innocent gray, bell-shaped, thick and meaty. I gathered a big basket of them, carefully choosing one of each s
tage of development from tiny button to rotting adult, brought them up to the house, sat down with our mushroom book and attempted to match them to the book’s vacillating descriptions and uncolored indistinct photographs.

  After several hours of research I was at least reasonably sure that I had neither the Death Cup (Amanita phalloides): “There is no known antidote,” or Fly Amanita (Amanita muscaria): “It is said that it is cooked and eaten by the Russians yet is known to have caused much sickness and many deaths.” But without colored plates I couldn’t decide whether I had the Inky Coprinus (Coprinus atramentarius), “edible”; or the Dog Cortinarius (Cortinarius caninus) on the deadlines or edibility of which the book disdained to comment.

  Being in a reckless mood I put an iron skillet on the fire, tossed in a big lump of butter and began washing and slicing the mushrooms. They had a nice even firm texture and a pleasant unpoisonous smell so I filled the skillet full. When I thought they were done I heaped some invitingly on crisp toast and offered them to Anne and Joan and Don who were sitting at the kitchen table contentedly eating vegetable soup and, as Don said, “Not at all enthusiastic about changing to poisonous mushrooms, no matter how crisp the toast.” I told them they were being pretty ridiculous and reminded them how well Daddy had trained his children in mushroom gathering. Don said, “No doubt,” and continued with his soup.

  Rather defiantly I ate all the mushrooms, even flouncing up and getting a second helping. They tasted a tiny bit like Shaggy-Manes and a great deal like cardboard soaked in Mercurochrome. I said to Don and the girls, “The flavor is not exciting but it is so mild and inoffensive and the mushrooms are so plentiful and keep their shape so beautifully when cooked, that I’m going to use nothing else from now on. I’m not even going to bother to pick the Shaggy-Manes.”