Shuck Em If Ya Got Em!
As summer fades…
As summer fades and the majority of our guests migrate from the patio environment back to a preference for indoor dining, our menu naturally evolves too. French Onion Soup makes its seasonal return, as does Chicken Thigh Pot Pie and Short Rib Ragu. Soon we’ll be braising and roasting more and smoking foods outside a little less. With this transition, clam season winds down for us. Happens every year. A week or so after Labor Day we discontinue our Clams Casino on a daily basis and shift the offerings toward bites more autumnal. We did something just a little different this year however. See, for the better part of 30 years, I’ve shucked the overwhelming majority of the clams myself. Two hundred, four hundred, six hundred each week, depending on demand. But a lot of clams for a farm town 3 hours from the coast!
I first shucked clams when I was about 7 years old, in my grandmother’s garage in Mt. Kisco, NY. I have one sister and a bunch of cousins. All girls. So Grandma would host these big parties where I generally got bored with the old folks and ended up in one of two places. Grandma’s kitchen where there was a seemingly bottomless pot of red sauce simmering perpetually. I could dunk bread all day long! Still my favorite thing to eat. Or… I’d head out to the garage where the guys were playing cards, talking baseball and eating clams. Somehow I became convinced that the coolest guy in the room was the guy who could shuck em fast enough to keep up with the demands of a couple dozen Italian men. I got, I think, pretty good at the craft. When I was maybe 10 or 12 years old, Don Staber found out about my shucking abilities and dragged me along to a handful of clam bake/barbecues he was catering. It was never really ‘a thing’ here at the restaurant when Don owned it but I did some shucking for catering events with (then CnB chef) Ellen as she started freelance projects and eventually opened the Spring Street Market in Saratoga. When I worked for the Mangino family at the Ash Grove Inn I primarily served tables and tended their bar. There were a couple of weddings however when I remember surprising Marlene and Tina with my shucking ability.
We ran Clams Casino as a one off here at the Bull nearly 30 years ago. I believe it was Mike Staber’s idea and I was thrilled that he wanted to bring something that was kinda ‘mine’ onto his menu. I’ve been shucking every summer since.
This summer was different! Taking inspiration from Tom Sawyer’s fence painting, I set a challenge to all the young guys in the kitchen crew on Memorial Day. As clam season commenced I pinned two crisp one hundred dollar bills to the wall in the middle of the kitchen and told the boys “this goes home with the second best clam shucker on Labor Day.” I gave them a lesson and a whole bunch of clam shucking stories about Don Staber and how he learned from his Uncle Dick (Stokna, Colonial Inn). I told them about Chuck Quinlan’s legendary clam bakes up at the C&R and how I’d always been told Dave Sherman was probably Galway’s best shucker. Chuck later told me he believed Harold Sherman to be the champ.
As summer ‘25 concludes I’m proud of the two young men that took this challenge to heart and honed a life skill. Marek and Gavin had their shuck off this past Saturday. Gavin was awarded the $200 prize for his effort. Both are now certified, competent members of the shucking fraternity. One of them is a Sherman, keeping that skill set in the family tree. And I, like ole Tom Sawyer, barely lifted a finger to shuck all summer long. Win. Win. Win.
