Quahog

Palourde américaine (quahog)

What it is

Linnaeus named it Mercenaria in 1758, from the Latin for wages, having read that the purple rim of its shell was cut into wampum beads by the Narragansett and their neighbours and later taken as payment by colonists. The English name comes from the Narragansett poquauhock.

In the kitchen

Size decides the method and there is no middle ground: under about five centimetres they go raw on the half shell, and anything bigger is chopped for chowder. Chopped quahog wants either five minutes at the very end of the pot or forty-five minutes of slow simmering — between the two it is leather.

Goes with

Smoked cured pork belly Potato Cream Thyme Onion Butter Celery Bay leaf

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