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The Story Behind the Food and Drink Quite Unique to ‘Little Rhody’-Insight into Rhode Island’s Cuisine HistoryRhode Island has some iconic and unique foods that are representative of its geography, its history dating back to colonial days and its people including its many immigrants. From johnnycakes baked on a wooden, fireplace griddle made by milling the hard, native Flint corn kernels into cornmeal to its frozen lemonade, hot New York System hot wieners from Olneyville, fried doughboys, Italian-style snail salad, fried calamari with spicy vinegar peppers, stuffed quahog clams with Portuguese chourico, French-Canadian ‘dynamites,’ Indian pudding with molasses, coffee milk and milk shakes containing scoops of ice cream that were originally called cabinets because the apothecary or the soda jerk kept the coffee syrup in a wooden furniture cabinet behind the counter, Rhode Island culinary scene has some authentic gems. According to a recipe published in 1903 in The Spatula---unlike in the rest of New England that calls such ice cream-based milk shakes frappes--- a Coffee Cabinet consists of ‘coffee syrup, egg, plain cream, ice cream, and shaved ice, thoroughly shaken. The coarse stream of sodas is drawn, and the drink is strained. This has often been called a meal-in-itself.” Delekta’s Pharmacy on Main Street in Warren, Rhode Island no longer dispenses prescription medication, but you can still get a coffee cabinet close to the original made at a soda fountain counter. Coffee ice cream is a staple like vanilla, chocolate and strawberry in Rhode Island and I recall being stupefied as a young child in 1960 by family and neighbors that when they traveled far out of state sometimes returned with stories that coffee flavored ice cream and coffee milk were unobtainable. Autocrat brand coffee syrup has been on grocery shelves for 100 years and the syrup was marketed to promote milk drinking by youngsters; a campaign that was so successful back in the day that nowadays coffee milk is the Official State Drink of Rhode Island. Autocrat brand is the sweetest syrup while its competitors Eclipse and newcomer Coffee Time feature more bold coffee flavor and less sugar. Kids nowadays drink less coffee milk but its effect on the taste preferences for coffee flavored dairy products is pronounced. Yogurt, soft serve ice cream, dessert Sundaes and ice cream novelties often feature the popular coffee flavor. None of these local favorites however compare to the clam cake as far as its potential to broaden its appeal to other areas. It is a seaside favorite and why it is not marketed in nearby Cape Cod or Long Island in New York is puzzling to me although we do see it sold at restaurants and clam shacks in neighboring southeastern Massachusetts. They are deep fried corn fritters where instead of corn kernels, chopped clams are substituted. They accompany clam chowder, which in Rhode Island is served white [New England], red with tomatoes [Manhattan-style] and as a clear broth chowder heavy on unsalted butter and white potato that is the standard in South County Rhode Island as well as in adjacent coastal Connecticut. Oyster crackers are a must accompaniment. You almost never find the clear-broth style cooked on stovetops anywhere else. For those looking on a Rhode Island State map there is no South County because its official name is Washington County. Clam cakes often ordered as a take-out item from clam shacks or seaside restaurants, are bagged by the half or full dozen. Their origin dates back over 100 years as far as marketing when they were first sold at Aunt Carrie’s in Point Judith but I suspect that other home-cooks had used minced clams in similar fried products before Carrie Cooper magically transformed her own fritter recipe from featuring corn to clams. I have read that Chop Suey and Chow Mein were invented in a San Francisco Chinese restaurant, but I doubt that Chinese peasants did not stir fry similar bean sprout dishes many million times before its American debut on woks over small, charcoal fires. In Rhode Island, clams are commonly used in meals by frugal and crafty cooks in their pantry kitchens especially in the summer by the seaside. Narragansett Bay has arguably the best hard-shell clams in the world so it is a natural that they would find their way into a variety of foods that local cooks improvised. Johnny cakes which is a bastardization of the original ‘journey cakes’ meant to describe the flint corn griddle cakes packed for a meal while traveling popular in Colonial Rhode Island underlies the probable etymology of how wheat flour-based corn fritters became known as clam ‘cakes.’ Carrie Cooper and her husband Ulysses took their large family of eight to Point Judith to camp out on the seashore. The Cooper’s loaded everything into their Model-T for their summer vacation of swimming, clamming, fishing, and combing the sandy beaches. Carrie, a farmgirl, was adept at cooking and improvising recipes to what was in season used the clams raked by her six kids from the mudflats and sandy shoreline to make chowder and her golden-brown, clam-filled, fried fritters. They were a smashing hit with hungry fisherman camping out and Ulysses who had started to sell cold lemonade from a stand near the Point Judith Lighthouse where the restaurant now sits sold them as well. Summers were spent with her children and their many cousins, who eventually gave the place its name by their frequent nagging calls to their gracious aunt; diners soon picked up on their wailings for her and everyone began calling the place, Aunt Carrie’s. Home-made pies, fresh baked cinnamon bread and the molasses baked Indian corn pudding topped with vanilla ice cream are authentic South County desserts served there that still give it a traditional South County beachside flair. Clam cakes in Rhode Island vary in size with the largest being served in restaurants and clam shacks the further south one goes toward Point Judith. The historic Rocky Point Amusement Park which was a bayside attraction that entertained its visitors with rides, shows, carnival games, fireworks on Warwick Neck from 1847 to its closing in 1995 served a rather petite clam cake. What they lacked in size they made up in quantity for its world size shore dinner hall and bayside, take out windows served and bagged in its heyday some 1,700 clam-cake orders on a typical summer day—23,000 individual fritters served hot from the cooking oil. Eastward, across the bay, at Bullock’s Point the Crescent Park Amusement Park served up similar summer fun which included Rhode Island clam chowder and plenty of clam cakes. Clam cakes were a creative way to use a bountiful natural resource and, in a sense, no different than what the Italians of southern Italy did with the amazing lemons that grew prolifically around Naples or the varied seafood fished from the nearby Mediterranean Sea. What was learned in Italy would be utilized by immigrants to make the Italian ice treat—Del’s lemonade--- and, to turn the lowly ocean sea snail into a tasty, one-of-a-kind seafood salad. Lemons do not grow in Rhode Island but were readily available from wholesale produce markets and were soon being hawked as a cool, refreshing icy treat. Whelks are sea snails that live in the surrounding cold ocean waters and although are sometimes sold mislabeled as ‘Conch’ even nowadays in Rhode Island fish markets they are whelks; conch are sea snails that live in warm, tropical waters like those surrounding Florida or the Bahamas. Whelks are trapped in pots in Narragansett Bay, but many times they get pulled up by bull-rakes wielded by hand from small boats by quahoggers. Both conch and whelks are edible but their taste and chewy texture are different and Rhode Island snail salad uses the native, cold water whelk that when marinated in a lemony, olive oil and red wine vinaigrette with red onions, raw garlic, olives, parsley, hot pepper flakes, pickled pepperoncini, celery and Romaine lettuce is surprisingly spectacular [marinated Scungilli salad]. Served with a hard-crusted Italian or Sicilian bread it is an epicurean treat from a creature that many including the first Pilgrims to New England despite their hunger refused to eat to the shock of the native Indians who were accustomed to subsisting on all types of shellfish. Many of the first settlers that disembarked from the Mayflower almost starved the following winter not because food was unavailable but due to their stubborn English palate. Clams are abundant, tasty, and healthy, low in fat and calories, high in protein with iron, Vitamin B-12, selenium and zinc. Clam and oyster meat typically are 30 % nutritious protein and the type of fat that they do contain is plentiful with beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. They have been eaten by Native Indians for millenniums and Europeans, eventually even the picky-eating English settlers, learned their value from the indigenous peoples. Indians prepared their own versions of clam chowder and the shells were polished and shaped into ‘wampum’ that was bartered among tribes as a form of currency as well as symbols of personal status. The American surf clam and the ocean ‘black’ clam is today harvested from New England to Virginia. The Narragansett tribe lived in along the banks of an ocean flooded river valley where they waded and dove into its brackish water to harvest the clamped mollusk they called ‘poquauhock’ which when Anglicized by the colonists became ‘quahog.’ Mercenaria mercenaria is from the Latin word for pay and wages and refers to their use as wampum but the quahog is categorized by size. All quahogs are filter feeders removing phytoplankton and the largest clams can filter a gallon of seawater an hour. They can tolerate some pollutants and those transported from contaminated areas to cleaner waters after several months will purge themselves out--- but because clams can filter out viruses and bacteria when feeding they are not safe if harvested from polluted waters. Quahogs prefer less salinity than the surrounding ocean waters and thrive in the silted and sandy bottoms of the Narragansett Bay estuary which consists of the East and West passages that are divided by Aquidneck [Newport] and Conanicut [Jamestown] islands along with the Sakonnet River that extends from Aquidneck island to the mainland of Tiverton and Little Compton; Narragansett Bay receives much freshwater from the rivers and streams that drain the adjacent watersheds and is less salty than Rhode Island Sound. Today the smallest legal size marketed often served raw with lemon, cocktail sauce and horseradish are the ‘little necks.’ They usually are about 1 ? inches wide, top-necks are slightly larger and cherrystones which are no more than 2 ? inches wide—all are edible raw on the half-shell but any quahog larger is almost always cooked. Little necks make excellent clam casino and cherry stones can be broiled open on a grill or are a nice size to use whole in pasta sauces because when their shells open wide from the heat it’s an appetizing sight for the hungry. The largest ‘quahogs’ starting at 3 inches wide can easily weigh as much as ?-pound but their tough meat is usually chopped up for use in chowders. I like to just cover them in water for boiling when they are piled up into a pot and the salty broth is delicious. The meat when taken from the open shell can be run through a food processor and when chopped with garlic, green parsley and olive oil can be the base for a delicious chowder; also when mixed with egg, bread crumbs, Portuguese chourico or linguica and sautéed onions they make a tasty, well-seasoned filling for stuffing into their open half shells which are then perfect for baking. Ground-up quahogs also make an excellent marinara sauce or a ‘white sauce’ that leaves out the tomato; the latter typically features sautéed garlic in olive oil and butter with fresh sprigs of parsley; both red and white clam sauce goes well with linguine. Some Italians see grated cheese as a distraction from the seafood so by preference it is usually omitted as a topping.The waters of Narragansett Bay, the shoreline along the Rhode Island Sound and the tidal mud flats also produce clams with a softer, brittle shell; although they are more often harvested further north from Ipswich, Massachusetts on Cape Cod up to the tidal flats along the rocky coast of Maine. Soft-shell clams can tolerate a wide range of salinities within the estuarine zone and burrow into fine silt to coarse gravel within the intertidal zone as well as submerging themselves into the sandy bottoms of coastal waters up to 15 meters deep. They usually borrow deeper than hard shell clams to avoid predation up to six to twelve inches deep. Those in sandier, granular bottom sediments grow slower. To feed, the steamer or longneck clam extends a pair of long siphons up to the surface of the sandy bottom, drawing seawater in to filter it for nutrients as well as oxygen before forcefully expelling it out. Those that live in their northern range up into Canada usually live buried within the tidal zone whereas those living in the southern part of their range in the Carolinas live submerged in deeper waters due to the higher temperatures. I lived in Wickford, Rhode Island years ago and my retired neighbor, Ray Crompton, would harvest these ‘steamers’ [Mya arenaria] just south of nearby Cold Spring Beach. The bite-sized ones are the most marketable, but my neighbor Ray would use his clam rake to dig up for me soft shells clams that were older, and comparatively huge. Once steamed, you would have to eat them with a knife and fork to cut them into manageable morsels but despite their 4 to 5-inch length or so, I felt they were as tender and sweet as their smaller counterparts sold in the local fish markets. Many chefs let the soft-shell clams sit in salted water laced with vinegar or cornmeal to encourage them to disgorge any ingested sand particles. Usually, the sweet smaller clams are shucked and battered up for frying up with whole bellies and all, or for steaming in a clam boil where they are served hot to be dipped in broth to rinse off any sandy grit after removal from their shells and then dipped in clarified butter. Before eating-- the tough, dark-colored neck skin needs to be stripped off. They are also added as a first course menu item in a traditional New England clam or lobster bake. Granite rocks are heated by firewood until hot, embers are raked and swept away, then the food is covered with layers of harvested seaweed and a wet canvas. Besides the live seafood and cod fillets bagged for steaming there are white and sweet potatoes, whole onions, sausage, corn-on-the-cob added to the outside bake. Bowls of chowder are ladled out with crackers and clamcakes while the feast cooks. It must be noted that soft-shell clams too make excellent additions to chowders, clam cakes, bouillabaisse, and fish stews. Another Italian contribution is the fried calamari. Point Judith and its fishing port, Galilee, lands about 40% of the squid catch on the U.S. eastern seaboard and like the whelk the catch represented a resource that immigrants from the Mediterranean knew how to prepare. Cleaned out squid form conical, hollow tubes that are often stuffed with a garlicky bread filling and baked or added to a simmering tomato sauce to tenderize; more often they are cut into concentric rings and after being dredged in flour, deep fried and served with garlic and sautéed pickled hot peppers, sprinkled with salt, and doused with extra virgin olive oil. A simple peasant food is transformed into an eclectic appetizer especially for those enjoying a few drinks. Also, Italians missing their fresh sardines transformed the Atlantic rainbow smelt commonly found swimming in New England especially in Maine into a ready substitute; handfuls of these small fish after being dredged in flour are also deep fried or sautéed until golden brown, sprinkled with large grains of kosher or sea salt and doused with fresh squeezed lemon serving as an excellent first course for any meal. Italian ices are the inspiration for the Del’s Lemonade recipe whose original recipe dates-back to the year 1840, from Naples, Italy. Before refrigeration, Italians would carry snow and ice into nearby caves and cover them in deep layers of insulating straw. The prolific harvest of ripe lemons along the Amalfi coast when mixed with sugar and shaved ice made a thirst-quenching frozen summertime treat. Fruit ices are prized in Europe, and Franco De Lucia brought his father’s refreshing recipe at the turn of the 20th century to America. It was his son Angelo that designed a machine to turn the ice shavings into a consistent frozen product that could be served from his original stand in Cranston and from the back of trucks to reach customers throughout the area. It was in 1948 that Del’s acquired its name and the De Lucia lemonade franchises are marketed worldwide. Italians weren’t the only Rhode Island immigrants to contribute to its unique foods. Greeks running pizza joints and breakfast/lunch diners made an impact especially in introducing the hot wiener. In the 1920s, Anthony Stevens and his son Nicholas migrated from Greece to New York City and ran a small candy shop. The whole family moved to Olneyville section of Providence in the late 1930’s and opened a luncheon where among other items they served up their own NY System hotdogs. A family creation that never saw the light of day in the Big Apple since they were purveyors of sweets and not luncheon meat, hamburgers or frankfurters. A mild, thin hot dog tubing made to specifications from veal and pork that when served on a soft steamed bun with chopped onions, celery salt, yellow mustard and topped with a ground beef sauce spiced with cinnamon, allspice, chili powder, cumin is a powerful upgrade from the more mundane, boiled frankfurter. It was the chopped onion combined with the Aegean spiced beef sauce that made them so appetizing especially when sautéed in lard. The small diner in Olneyville is famous for introducing the New York System wieners and for years it was fun to see a chef lining the steamed hot dog buns up his forearm as he prepared the wieners usually fully dressed with the meat sauce and every offered condiment. The ‘New York style’ hot wiener soon became not only a luncheon special statewide but also a late-night hit in Rhode Island. French fries sprinkled with malt vinegar or ketchup make a tasty side accompaniment. The French-Canadians who settled in the northern mill town of Woonsocket along the Blackstone River introduced French meat pies and hot spicy ‘dynamites.’ The latter being served at fairs and carnivals feature ground beef in tomato sauce, onions and diced, green peppers spiced with garlic powder and hot pepper flakes served within a soft, torpedo bun. The French also had a fondness for family style chicken dinners that were served with large bowls of freshly tossed green salad and all-you-can eat French fries and surprisingly Italian macaroni shells topped with tomato sauce and grated cheese. It always struck me as odd that the meal features a double starch of potato and pasta, but it works quite well. Wright’s Farm today is a destination restaurant in northern Rhode Island well-known for these affordable, all-you-can eat, family-style chicken dinners.Chinese immigrants, who fled violence on the U.S. West Coast in the 1880-1890s settled in downtown Providence in boarding houses and tenements on Burrill, Chapel and Empire streets, opened restaurants that compared to traditional New England fare offered exotic stir-fried meals. The Port Arthur, Luke’s, the Ming Garden, and the Mee-Hong restaurants were downcity businesses that introduced a new cuisine from the Far East that appealed to Rhode Islanders. My father would take my younger sister and I for lunch at the Mee Hong on Westminster Street [1938-1979] and I remember that the chop suey or chow mein that we ordered came out steaming hot in covered stainless steel, serving pots and were accompanied by small dishes of sweet vinegar coleslaw, boiled white rice and pickled red beets. French bread, soft and cut diagonally, with butter also were served; a pot of piping hot tea placed on each diner’s table. The hand-written check was always reasonable for the abundance of food provided. Today in Rhode Island newer immigrants from Guatemala, the Dominican Republic as well as parts of Southeast Asia are continuing the local food evolution. Traditional favorites fit in and co-exist with more worldly fare brought by newcomers that brings zest to the culinary scene in one of the original states of the American Revolution. Below is a favorite version of Rhode Island Clam Cakes from the Rocky Point Shore Dinner Hall which I enjoyed growing up as a young boy in the 1960s:Ingredients:1 cup all-purpose flour1 teaspoon baking powder [leavening agent]? teaspoon [kosher] salt, cracked-black pepper recommended 1 large egg? cup of clam juice or clam broth4 tablespoons of fresh, whole milk6 ounces of raw, chopped/minced chowder clams or ground up quahogs with juice; canned product also is suitable *Hot peanut oil for deep fryingSift together the dry ingredients and set aside.Drain clams and reserve juice. Make sure the clam juice equals ? cup at minimum. In a medium bowl mix cracked egg, clam juice and milk. Stir in clams. Add dry ingredients gradually, stirring well so that the ‘cake’ batter is well-blended.Drop by tablespoonsful into the hot oil. Test the temperature first by dropping a dime-size droplet of batter and if the oil is hot enough it should sizzle quickly. Fry fritters until golden-brown and drain on absorbent paper towels. Sprinkle with kosher salt. Serve hot!*My recommendation: Another alternative is to take about 6 pounds of chowder quahogs and after cleaning them by scrubbing and rinsing in cold water pile them high in a pot and cover them barely with tap water. DO NOT ADD SALT. Boil on stove until shells open and when cool enough remove the clams from the shells with a fork. Retain the broth for recipe. Grind cooked clam-meat in a food processor with a clove of fresh garlic and sprigs of parsley and olive oil. Use the seasoned minced clams instead of chopped raw clams or quahogs. The seasoned quahogs add an intensity to the batter. Broth replaces raw, canned, or bottled clam juice in above recipe. Serve with lemon wedges, tartar sauce, hot sauce and best when dipped into a steaming, bowl of clam chowder.By R. Anthony Saritelli 06/20/2020 Summer SolsticeReferences:Robinson, E. Soft Shell Clams. Harpswell Heritage Land TrustFox, Irving. The Spatula. Spatula Publishing Co. 1903.Wikipedia references: Coffee Cabinet. Quahog, Rocky Point Amusement Park [History], Chinatown, Providence, RI.Serious Eats: A Guide to Clams & What to Do with Them. 04/2018Blog: Aunt Carrie’s, RI. Our Story—Is There Really an Aunt Carrie?Blog: Olneyville New York SystemBlog: The Del’s StoryOlives & Okra: Healthy Living. Rocky Point Clam Cakes recipeProvidence’s Chinatown: Rhode Island Historical Archives. Providence, RI. ................
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