Foraging for Clams and Oysters: A Culinary Adventure

My new girlfriend and I share a love of sushi and seafood. She loves that I appreciate everything she cooks, and that I’m adept with chopsticks. More importantly, she loves adventure. She shares my goal of making the most out of the healthy years we have left. Her singular answer to all my crazy ideas is, “let’s go!”, followed by a cheerful giggle. So, yesterday we headed to a remote state park in south Puget Sound to forage for steamer clams and oysters. The term “steamer” clam refers to small Manila and native Littleneck clams, which are hard to tell apart. To our surprise, it took us less than 20 minutes to gather our entire quotas of 40 each, although our haul of 80 clams weighed only around five pounds. After that, we decided to go for oysters. Of all things in nature to forage, oysters must be the easiest. They just lay there in plain sight on the beach, waiting for you to just pick them up and throw them in your bucket.

The hard part about oysters is shucking them. Although we had both watched YouTube videos about it, it was harder than it looked. Fortunately, some people we met on the beach give us some pointers. Washington state law requires you to shuck them right on the beach and leave the shells behind, which apparently fosters the growth of more oysters. With our one oyster knife we sat on a rock and took turns practicing, and she relished her chance to learn a new life skill. We each got lots of practice, since we had our limit of 36 between the two of us. We got faster at it over time.

Right as we were taking our harvest and our tools back to the car, the skies opened up and the rain came down. We sat in the warm car as the rain bounced off the hood and picnicked on sandwiches she had made, along with chestnuts roasted at the Chinese market the day before and hot tea from the thermos she gave me for my birthday. We watched a family hastily pack up their ruined picnic, and some boys playing an exuberant game of football in the rain. As we laughed and chatted, I thought to myself that this is the life I’ve always wanted since my divorce six years ago.

After the long drive back to her place, it was time to reap the benefits of our efforts. The clams needed to wait at least a day to purge all the sand from their systems before we ate them, but the oysters were ready to go. She made what she called a Chinese dish, which was a sort of omelet with just eggs, oysters, green onions, and white pepper. We were both impressed at just how tasty it was. It really makes a difference to eat oysters while they’re fresh from the sea; they didn’t taste fishy at all.

Tonight I came back for the clams. When I arrived, she was frying them up in a huge pan, along with olive oil, green onions, ginger, and garlic. There were more than we could eat, and she had already made a new dish with the leftover oysters from last night. This one had flour instead of eggs, and was more like a pancake. She served up some bok choy on the side, with Chinese sesame balls for dessert. What a feast!