Thus whoever wants to know what was on the menu at a White House banquet on May 12th 1908, can find it on pages 514-15: littleneclamsams, fresh caviar, strained gumbo, salmon, squabs, ice cream, "fancy cakes" and coffee, not to mention cigars.
The northern quahog (Mercenaria mercenaria), also known as the cherrystone clam, littleneck clam, or hard-shell clam, and the southern quahog (M. campechiensis) belong to the family of venus clams (Veneridae).
Hard-to-find Spanish gooseneck barnacles, which taste like littleneck clams but resemble tiny dinosaur claws, are as fun to look at as they are delicious, and the rooster's comb in a rustic dish of sautéed mushrooms has a pleasingly fungal texture and delicate poultry flavor.
(Open daily for dinner. Raw bar from $1.35 for a littleneck clam to $140 for "La Grande" Plateau).
They chop up the coleslaw and shuck the oysters — tiny Olympias, fat Caraquets, handsome Pemaquids — and prepare the tidy platters of smoked fish or littleneck clams or sevruga caviar.
The sweet simplicity of raw beef mixed with chopped littleneck clams and fermented wild leeks makes steak tartare look overwrought.
Sweet littleneck clams and garlicky nubs of excellent bratwurst swim in a buttery, saline kolsch broth ($11).
The choices include sautéed calamari with white beans and roasted tomato; deep-fried artichoke hearts (which lacked seasoning); excellent roasted littleneck clams stuffed with bread crumbs and pancetta; meaty grilled shrimp; and a mushroom risotto with truffle oil and Parmesan (well-cooked but underseasoned, and curiously bland).
Dressed with sesame oil, lime juice and olive oil, the jellyfish provides the slight crunch of raw littleneck clam with the smooth slipperiness of cold noodles.
In the category of good but not great was an order of linguine ringed with littleneck clams and crowned with three jumbo shrimp.
Before going under the flame, each littleneck is topped with a chip of compound butter the size of a nickel.
