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Local Food
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Written by Carla McGarvie
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Sunday, 28 March 2010 12:50 |
Carla McGarvie, an amateur gourmet and mom, grew up foraging in the Northwest and is passing the tradition on to her daughters. She will pen monthly articles on foraging with kids for Sound Food. McGarvie's blog, Bainbridge Style, features inspiring words and photos about food and travel.
Teaching children about the splendor of Mother Nature is hard. I told my six year old daughter I’m writing a series about foraging with children and asked for her thoughts. “The first is about clam digging,” I prompt, anticipating a giddy reply. We’re regulars at Copalis Beach for razor clams and dig about once a month.
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She’s having trouble deciding where to start so I add, “What do you like about clam digging?”
Jane gazes up and replies, “There’s pretty much nothing I like about it Mommy. “
That went well.
I expect this sort of smack talk from Elizabeth, my younger daughter and victim of clam brutality. Once, while raking steamers at Shine Tidelands she got bit by a clam. At the risk of sounding insensitive I stifle a laugh when I think about it. She’d been quietly amusing herself with the captured clams, sticking her fingers in their shells until one indignant clam fought back and clamped down.
Traumatized and defeated we packed up our rakes and left, but I marked the offender’s shell. Elizabeth triumphantly extracted her revenge by eating it. No time like the present to learn your place in the food chain.
My own childhood was spent foraging with my family on the Olympic Peninsula. One of my favorite memories is night
crabbing. I was quite young and my dad carried me across the small river we forded to get to the Dungeness crab waiting to be scooped from tide pools into our galvanized bin.
I’m the only one in my family to capture an octopus. I was about 8 when my dad decided to expand our fishing repertoire. He put something stinky on a stick enticing an octopus to leave its den and my older brothers were supposed to grab it. When the octopus appeared no one wanted to touch it. Amid much yelling and hand waving I’m proud to say I grabbed the octopus and put it in a burlap sack. We only went octopus fishing that one time.
I want to give this to my children. A comfort with nature, discoveries like a tiny owl tucked into its burrow, a favorite fishing spot, otters surfing creek rapids and their own secret salmonberry patch. I want for them the pride of returning home with a string of rainbow trout or a pail of wild mountain blackberries.
As I pack for clam digging this weekend I think of the fun we’ll have at the beach. We rarely get our limit due to cold hands and wet feet but we snuggle in the car and watch lanterns of other diggers move across the sand with the constellations behind them.
Jane may not appreciate now what we’re building but one day she’ll look back with nostalgia. For now she appreciates the experience by way of this delicious clam chowder brought to us by Barbara of the Hoquiam Farmer’s Market.
Barbara’s Farmer’s Market Clam Chowder
¼ cup olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup grated carrots (sometimes I add even more)
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon dill
1/4 teaspoon thyme
2 tablespoons dry parsley (fresh if you have it!)
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
6 -8 small potatoes, finely cubed
6 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
Chicken stock, if desired.
1 cup milk
¼ cup flour
1-2 cups ground clams
1 to 2 cans evaporated milk
Heat oil in sauté pan and cook the onion celery, carrots, dill, thyme, parsley, and mustard, salt and pepper until veggies are translucent, set aside.
Place potatoes and crumbled bacon in soup pot and cover with water or chicken stock. Simmer until potatoes are cooked through. Combine flour and milk in a blender and add to the potatoes. Stir quickly to mix and thicken. Add sautéed veggies and evaporated milk to desired thickness then add chopped clams. Cook just until clams are heated through.
Ladle into bowls and add a dollop of butter on top of each bowl. Enjoy.
There are several clam digs this week, and more planned for mid-April and possibly even into May, due to a higher than normal amount of clams available for spring harvest. Today (Monday March 29, 2010) is the first of the morning tide digs for the year. Click here for times and rules. For more razor clam tips, and a great recipe for Tempura Razor Clam Sushi, see Langdon Cook's recent article on his Fat of the Land blog.
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