RecipeMuncher

So there are two kinds of fried clams in this world, fried clam strips and fried clams with bellys. The first kind is a flavorless dried out, stringy, piece of clam meat. The second kind is moist, tender and full of ocean flavor. The past couple of years pork belly has been the big thing… I hope clam bellys get their turn to shine.

There are two parts to clams, the “muscle part” and the “soft everything else part”. The “soft everything else part” is what is called the belly. When you have fried clams with belly, you are eating the whole clam. Soft shelled clams or steamers are the clams that are most often used. They are also called: longneck clams or Ipswitch clams. These clams spend most of their life chilling out in the mudflats of New England, filtering water for tasty bits of food. Anyhow the belly is where all the magic happens for the clam, and where all the flavor is. When you just get the strips, you m…