Published: April 22, 2010

Just a short drive and a ferry ride from urban Seattle is Dosewallips State Park and, at low tide, a harvest of clams waiting to be raked from the sand. A spring break trip to a beach that requires you to bend over and dig through mud, you might ask? Well, this foodie will travel for, well, food. And Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula have a lot of foodie treasures to offer: smoked salmon from Pike Place Market, wild halibut from the nearby Pacific and great coffee. But when I found out we could dig our own clams and bring them home and cook them within a few hours of finding them, I was sold. Rainy Olympic Peninsula be damned!

And so, armed with a shellfish license, a map, a bucket and a rake, my friend and I trekked to the beach at low tide. We found a shellfish graveyard, with bleached oyster and clam shells stretching a quarter mile to the water’s edge. I am told to move slowly, keeping my eyes trained to the sand looking for a jet of water, as my more experienced friend instructed, which signals the presence of a clam. Once spotted, you have to act fast: they burrow down and disappear in a flash. Locate the exact spot of the spitter, drop down and troll through the muck until you find the prize. After an hour and a half, we only found 12 that could come home with us; the rest had to be left behind because they were less than 1½ inches long and too young to be harvested.

We filled the bucket with the clams halfway with sea water and put it on the floor of the front seat for the drive home.

Back at my friend’s apartment, a different arsenal: a pan, a lid, some garlic and olive oil. After having unwittingly soaked the clams in the exact manner Yahoo Answers told us to, they were ready to go. I couldn’t get over the freshness of the clams, our proximity to the place they were found and how very nearly free they were! They took all of 10 minutes to prepare and cook; it couldn’t have been easier or more delicious.

And lucky for students at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), clams aren’t only found in Washington. There are clams just across the river in New Jersey, where recreational shellfish licenses are $10 if you have a New Jersey state driver’s license and $20 for out-of-staters. Like Washington, however, you must leave them if they are less than 1½ inches long (find all the details on  http://www.nj.gov). And of course, clams can be found at any good grocery store right here in New York City.

Getting there:

Take the SeaStreak Ferry from Wall Street or E. 34th Street in Manhattan directly to the Sandy Hook peninsula, where you can walk to the clamming beaches. New Jersey clamming season runs from June through September.

Steamed Clams:

What you’ll need:

Tools: 

• A pan with a lid

Ingredients: 

• 12 clams, soaked in salt water for two hours (use salt with no iodine, as it will kill the clams)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• ½ lemon
• Cilantro (optional)

Instructions:

1) Heat the pan over high heat and add olive oil.

2) Add garlic and sauté 30 seconds.

3) Add the clams, cilantro (if using) and cover pan.

4) In a few minutes, the clams will open—they are done!

5) Discard any that do not open. Squeeze lemon over the clams. Serve right away and enjoy.