Jane and I went clamming for the first time this weekend. We set out on Saturday and drove to the south end of the Hood Canal, just north of Shelton, WA. It took about an hour and a half to drive there, but man, was it worth it.

This might sound silly, but I’ve been antsy to go forage food ever since I read Omnivore’s Dilemma. I don’t feel confident enough in my skills to go out and grab wild plants, even though I’m pretty sure I know what they look like. I’ve cooked with them a few times, so I shouldn’t worry so much. Still, there was a great draw to the shell-fishing that I can’t quite put my finger on. I was excited; we both were.

On Friday afternoon, we took a trip down to Burien to get some licenses at Fred Meyer (Washington’s Wal-Mart… there, I said it). We stood in line with people returning their carpet shampooers and cheap electronics. A man with a low wheeze came in behind us. He started to quiz us about what kind of fishing we planned on doing and where at.

“Olympic Bay? Oh, I used to get huge draws out of there. Yeah, I actually went to prison for catching 10,000 over my limit (The limit is 40 per person…). A year and a day.”

He went on to describe how they tried to accuse him of selling heroin for clams and how much of a bum rap he had gotten. Once he learned that the computer system was temporarily down, he started making a big scene about how they were just down “the other day”. He tried to get the lady behind the counter to just sign something for him to say that he paid for a license. When she wouldn’t, he stormed out.

We waited around for a bit for the system to come up, but we eventually decided to give Big-5 a try down the street. Once we got in line for the licenses, the wheezy man somehow snuck back in behind us again and struck up another conversation. This time he found a fellow “fisherman” to talk to. The government is apparently trying to screw us with these catch limits. They would charge us for everything if they had a chance to. Keep that in mind.

We left Big-5 $17.50 a piece poorer with licenses to catch clams and oysters throughout the year and crabs through the summer. We were both crossing our fingers that we could actually figure out what to do.

That night we had reservations to attend a special dinner at a new spot called Nettletown. It was a dinner in celebration of the eve of May Day and an old holiday called Nettlemas. Apparently, it was quite an intimate dinner, because there were only 10 of us on the list for quite a feast that was served family style. It was an outstanding meal of chinook salmon, pickled fiddleheads, a spring “ragu”, leek mashed potatoes, watercress and mint salad and a bread pudding dessert. I can’t even describe how fantastic everything was. We will be back soon. More importantly, it made me want to get out and grow and forage even more of my meals.

We woke up as early on Saturday as our internal clocks would allow us to. We packed some gardening tools, a bucket and the dog and head out to a hardware store to get a second set of everything. We made the drive out to Shelton without any troubles and started up Highway 3 headed north. I went the long way to avoid paying a toll on the Tacoma Narrows. It didn’t seem all that shorter over the bridge to where we were headed anyways. I missed the turn off to the parking lot at first and overshot it by about 6 miles. If I were on a bike, I would have been severely disappointed.

We parked in the tiny, obscure parking lot and set out towards the tidelands. There was only one other family out. Chibi was having a good time dancing around in the mud and generally getting filthy. There were plenty of sections that we sank shin high in to mud. Fair warning: bring clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty. It is going to happen one way or another.

There were hundred of clam and oyster shells up on the beach. Almost all of them were empty or filled with mud. It took us quite a while to find a real, live clam to take. I knew that we had to dig a little bit, but it was slightly discouraging at first. We weren’t planning on getting any oysters because you have to shuck them right on the beach and leave the shells (they are part of the ecosystem). We didn’t have a knife or a proper container for the meat and liquid. Next time we will prepare a bit better.

I managed to find a few here and there, but Jane wasn’t having any luck until she hit her jackpot location. Once she found “the spot”, we holed up and dug our 40 clam maximum in no time. Occasionally we were fooled by clams that looked sealed until you would wedge them open with your fingers to find them filled with mud. We were tricked this was on more than a couple of occasions, really. All things considered, we spent maybe 2 hours max on the beach, scored 8 or 9 pounds worth of clams and had a hell of a good time. I really can’t wait to do it again.

On the menu (I’ll post the recipes separately in a few days):
Homemade pasta with clam and pesto sauce
Clam Chowder (duh)
Clam and bacon pizza

p.s. Pictures shamelessly stolen from my wife.