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Story time. Many moons ago, my father went to his 50th high school reunion. I drove him to the town where he grew up, where his youngest sister put us up for the night. Before he left for the reunion, she made us dinner, part of which included what is a favorite Italian American appetizer, Clams Casino. Y’all, it was so good. Clams, bacon, bread crumbs, butter, it don’t get much better. Plus she served it in her own collection of clam shells used just for the occasion.
But what is Clams Casino, and why did it become so popular?
Clams Casino is an appetizer dish consisting of clams on the half shell with bacon, bread crumbs, peppers, and butter. It’s broiled so that the topping browns. It began in New England, and has become a favorite of Italian Americans all over the country. It has one of those fuzzy origin stories, as records have been destroyed by fire. Here is the story according to Eater.com:
But the birth of clams casino has a fuzzier history. The dish is most often credited to Julius Keller, who claimed to have invented the dish when he was an employee at Rhode Island's Narragansett Pier Casino. Contrary to its name, the Narragansett Pier Casino was not a gambling hall, but instead an upscale resort property built in the mid-1880s.
Julius Keller was a Sherry employee, and in his 1939 memoir Inns and Outs, he lays claim to the dish: In Keller's account, one of the resort's guests, Mrs. Paran Stevens, requested a "special" clam dish for an eight-person luncheon she was hosting. Those eight guests were the first to taste what Keller called "clams casino," and according to Keller's memoir, his diner was rather pleased. "My introduction of them to the socially ultra Mrs. Stevens put me in her good graces for the remainder of the time I spent at Narragansett," Keller wrote.
But Keller's account doesn't specify the ingredients that went into that first clams casino. "The dish is really a gussied-up substitute for regular Italian stuffed clams, which have a simple filling of bread crumbs, garlic, and sometimes oregano," says Eater senior critic Robert Sietsema, a documented fan of clams. "[But] clams casino are mainly about the bacon." Like with another New England classic — clam chowder — it's likely the first clams casino recipe was influenced by the inspired pairing of clams and pork. (According to Jasper White, author of the cookbook 50 Chowders, the first known seafood chowder recipe was printed in the Boston Evening Post in 1751, calling for "pork in slices very thin.") The dish's close relation to Italian stuffed clams would explain how it ended up a classic among the among the many Italian restaurants of Boston, Providence, and New Haven, Connecticut.
Although the dish "was certainly served at other times" at the Narragansett Pier Casino apart from that fateful luncheon, Vivian says there's little documentation that definitively traces the dish's eventual appearance on menus. (The Narragansett's two fires, unfortunately, destroyed most of its records.) Popular myth argues the dish debuted in 1917, but evidence suggests its debut happened at least two decades beforehand. In 2005 article published in the Providence Journal, writer Arline A. Fleming dug up records of the clam-loving socialite Paran Stevens, discovering the Newport resident died in 1895. During the late 1890s, Vivian says, "it was common" for the social elite living in Newport to sail across the bay for lunch at the Narragansett Pier: So, it's completely plausible — and even likely — that Mrs. Stevens sailed across the bay for a luncheon of clams casino before her death.
So there it is.
Anyway, what’s NOT in dispute is the deliciousness of the dish. So, I was checking out the newest Chef John video, as you do, and he made the following recipe:
I know, right? That looked amazing. However, as I am a lazy person at heart and didn’t want to stuff shells, in the members only live chat with Chef John I wondered if I could skip the shells, add a couple of beaten eggs to the mix, and make a casserole. He was intrigued, so I did it. Here’s what I used and how I did it.
2 5oz bags garlic and butter croutons
1 large onion, chopped
1 large poblano pepper, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
A whole lot of minced garlic cloves
1lb thick cut bacon
5 7oz cans chopped clams, reserve the liquid (I wound up with like 3 cups of liquid)
1 cup ricotta cheese
4oz shredded parmesan cheese
2 large eggs, beaten
6tbsp butter
4-5 tbsp flour
1 quart whole milk
Seasonings: Salt, pepper, cayenne
It began, as most good things begin, with bacon
Then I added the peppers and onion, then after a while, the garlic
Meanwhile I got my croutons in a bowl. When the peppers and onions were softened to my liking, I added the clam juice and began to reduce.
After reducing it by over half, I poured it over the bread crumbs and added the clams
After a few minutes of thoughtful mixing, I added the cheese and beaten eggs. The mixing cooled things off enough so that the eggs didn’t scramble.
I mixed everything then set in the fridge to cool. Next was a basic béchamel, seasoned with a small pinch of salt and some cayenne. I used a peanut butter colored roux. Just a bit more tan than a blond roux. I can do roux pretty well, and my sausage gravy is bussin’, but this simple white sauce was just thick enough and had real good flavor. Perhaps it’s because I hadn’t made the béchamel in a while, but it just hit different, you know?
So I poured about ¾ of the sauce into my casserole dish, added the clam mix, then added sauce on top. Since I had some, I topped it with what French fried onions I had, followed by another 4oz parmesan.
After baking, the result is in the lead photo in the diary. SO. GOOD. I mean, the clam juice after it reduced. So concentrated. So much thicker. It’s going in my rotation for sure.
Some things I learned from the experiment:
1. Now I know why béchamel is used in lasagna and pastitsio and stuff. And now I’ve learned the technique for myself.
2. I should have baked it at a higher temperature. After about a half hour, I wasn’t really smelling anything. I checked, and the oven said 325. Oops. I missed the 350 setting. But really it should have been set at 375 or even 400 to not only properly melt the parmesan on top but to get good browning of the béchamel as well.
3. I probably didn’t need to use the eggs. The ricotta and béchamel would have held it together just fine, I think.
So anyway, that’s the story of how a variation on the Italian stuffed clams recipe has become a super good and hearty casserole dish fit for the Feast of Seven Fishes (if you’re allowed to have bacon on Christmas Eve) or any church pot luck.
Do YOU have a dish that started one way and evolved into something totally other? Let’s hear it in the comments.