On 7/20/2014 2:55 PM, James Silverton wrote:
> When my kids were small they loved Howard Johnson's Fried clams. It used
> to be a big deal to have dinner at the HoJo restaurant near the Blue
> Ridge National Park. There aren't many (if any) HoJo's now but what
> sort of clams did they use? I recall the clams as being long battered
> strips.


I was actually a cook at a HoJo on and off 1965 to 1968 (while in High
School... I stared there as a dishwasher)

The clams came frozen in 1/2 gallon milk cartons. We thawed them out,
dipped in egg/milk wash, into the seasoned flour, shake, dip in wash
again and back into the flour a second time and then into the fryer.

The clams were strips cut from quahogs... large hard shell clams.
Ironically, the HoJo I worked at was 1/4 mile from Great South Bay in NY
where you could fill a bushel basket with cherrystones, littlenecks, etc
just by walking into the water and feeling around with your feet.

(Quohogs, littlenecks, cherrystones are all different sizes of the same
hardshell clam. Quohogs are the biggest and toughest and always used in
cooking, never eaten off the half-shell.)

George L