--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" <shempmcg...@...> wrote: <snip> > Judy: your clams are making my mouth water...but please > elaborate on what you mean by "clams (with bellies)". > You see, I understand the concept of "toro" which means > the fatty belly of the tuna (and toro sells for as much > as $100 a pound, it's so delectible) but I can't grasp > the concept of a clam having a belly. So please explain.
Basically, it's the clam's gut. I'm not sure I want to know any more than that. It's the part of the clam that has the most oceany, briny taste and the softest texture; the meaty parts don't have as much flavor and are more chewy. Many restaurants serve only clam "strips," which are just the meaty parts. That's for two reasons: one, squeamish diners prefer not to think they're eating internal organs, especially of the digestive tract; two, it's cheaper to use big clams and just cut up the meaty part into strips than to use small clams whole. Clams have to be carefully cleaned in any case. I think (but am reluctant to find out for certain) that proper cleaning removes the more objectionable contents of the gut (at any rate, what's removed is said not to taste very good). I prefer to assume that the "belly" contains only what the clam has eaten recently and not the waste products of its digestion. Clam bellies are often fried and served by themselves, incidentally. I like the combination of bellies and meaty parts, though. Here's a quasi-lyrical ode to clam bellies from the blog of the New York Times restaurant critic, Frank Bruni (it also mentions tuna belly): http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/going-for-the-gut/ http://tinyurl.com/b5h4pm Also check the comments if you're interested in more detail on what's served where. > Also: "perfect, nongreasy crispness". Note that greasy > CAN be a plus. No one likes, say, a greasy outer layer > on your tempura butyou can't GET crispness without grease. Right, but as you say, you don't want the grease to soak into the batter. Ask Curtis, but I believe it's a matter of the proper frying temperature; it can't be too low or the grease invades the batter and what's inside instead of just cooking it from the outside. Greasy fried clams are yucky, by me. And sometimes grease adds to > a dish. Perhaps it's me but a greasy pizza is, > simply, fantastic. Heart trouble runs in my father's side of my family, so I have a highly ambivalent relationship with saturated fat. Pizza should be made with olive oil, though, no? That's good for you. It's the cheese that's the problem (not to mention the sausage). And I love a submarine sandwich, > left in its wrapper for an hour or two that leaks > "grease" when I finally take it out and eat it (gotta > watch the mayo, though, because you don't want that > white bacteria-catcher fermenting too long in the heat). These days commercial mayo contains so many preservatives it probably will last quite awhile. Better safe than sorry, though.
