On 7/20/2014 3:49 PM, George Leppla wrote:
> 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

No **** clams! One of the few benefits to living in New Jersey, besides
the pizza, were the steamer clams at the shore.

--
From somewhere very deep in the heart of Texas