Trying to replicate a memory

Growing up in Alaska, I took fresh delicious seafood for granted. I'll never forget the winter when I uttered the forbidden phrase "Crab, again?". We had been eating crab at every meal for a week. But in my house when the crab was in, crab was what you ate.
Clam bakes on the beach are some of my best food memories. Several families and mine would meet across Katchemak Bay in a little cove known for its steamers. Pacific steamers are different than Atlantic. The shells are harder and the meat more tender. They are prized booty in the last frontier, I don't know anyone who would turn down a pot of fresh steamers. Anyway, clam bakes.
We all would meet at the wee hours of the morning, 4 or 5 am. Why are the lowest tides always so early? After using hand rakes to gather at least a 5 gallon bucket-full, we would quickly grab another bucket and fill it with the cleanest seaweed we could find. As the tide turned and began to come in, all of us kids would be sent back to dry ground to look for smooth rocks for the oven, and far away from the danger of being overcome by the tide.

Once we had a large pile of rocks, we would start digging. We wanted the hole to be in a rocky sand. Not too rough to dig in with a small shovel, but mostly pea sized gravel. I was little, and it was a long time ago, but I remember the hole being an oval shape, around 2 feet at the widest point and maybe 6 feet long. I stood in the hole and it was knee deep, probably 18" deep. First, we lined the cavern with the smooth rocks. Next came the seaweed. On top of that we placed the clams, any mussels or oysters we had, corn in the husk, and red potatoes. Next came more seaweed. If there was a fresh salmon to add to the smorgasbourg, it would be wrapped in seaweed and laid on top. Finally, more of the smooth rocks closed the dutchoven we had created. Next came the bonfire. Driftwood was the main source of the flames which would sometimes go taller than my dad. I was very impressed. The fire burned for 2 or 3 hours, slowly heating the oven we had built.

While we waited, we hunted for seashells and hermit crabs. Somebody's dad would bring out an octopus he had pulled out of crab pot on the way over. We all laughed when suckers would wrap around our hand, almost greeting us with a handshake. He would release the poor cephlapod with a quick toss into the calm water of the bay once everyone had had a chance examine the blob that was the octopus. A cribbage game might be going on a tiny travel board that someone had in their skiff. There were great conversations and more than one life-lesson learned.

As the fire died down, the embers would be raked away and rocks pulled from the top. A pitchfork lifted the salmon out whole onto a waiting ceder plank. The shellfish and veggies were the last out, with the final bi-valves being picked out by us kids who couldn't wait for plates.

We would eat too much, fatigue would begin to set in. The oven we had built was refilled with sand. The seaweed returned to the ocean for another animal to munch on. We were bundled into our life preservers and seated on bouys for the ride home.



I now know how lucky I was to grow up eating clams and mussels that I had plucked from the beach that very morning. I have a hard time buying most fish now that I live on the East coast. The Atlantic is really just a puddle compared to the Pacific. But shellfish can be sustainably raised with minimal impact on the environment in which the farms are placed, so I do occasionally splurge and buy everything I can find in a shell at the seafood counter. This usually includes lobsters, little neck clams, and mussels. The addition of corn on the cob, red potatoes, and fresh halved lemons fills the pot and a crusty loaf of bread for soaking up the juices completes the meal.