It was not long ago that I started eating clams again. I had a bad run-in with a clam in my late teens at the local Italian food joint; an experience which discouraged me from approaching bi-valves for nearly a decade.

I remember watching Martha Stewart several years later and learning the secret behind bad seafood, specifically clams. She stood in her little production kitchen wearing a large apron monogrammed with all the components of a clam bake. Only thing was, the ingredients were not set in a pot or on a table, but rather floating around the front of the apron as if seafood outer space.

“This right here is a little neck clam” she pointed out to several children standing beside her (presumably her child slaves). “They’re very sweet and delicious in the summertime but be careful not to eat the ones that haven’t opened after cooking. Those ones were dead to begin with. And those ones will make us sick.”

The children unanimously showed a look of horror, as if just realizing on that morning they’d be partaking in the slaughter of a living thing. I remember one boy, probably the neighborhood prankster, getting excited at the thought of death: his eyes lighting up as if to say, “when do we begin?”

I took Martha’s advice with me everywhere I went from that moment on. And while I hadn’t nearly worked up the courage to actually re-enter the clam world myself, I took comfort in sharing my newly-learned knowledge with friends and strangers. “Might not want to eat that one” I’d say while walking by a sidewalk cafe table in New York City. People often gave me strange looks, but soon accepted to my guidance upon realizing I only had their best interest in mind.

There are a number of good places to buy clams in Panama City, my new favorite being the Mercado de Mariscos on Avenida Balboa, at the mouth of Casco Viejo. The building itself is a large blue and white one, forever entrenched in the smell of old fish. Birds often hover above the roof, the way they do on the highway when something has died. But in reality, all the product inside is usually fresh as can be.

I recently wandered in and bought three pounds of fresh clams ($3) from a man wearing a full-body rubber suit. The great part about the fish market is that you can buy your fish downstairs, and have them cook it upstairs. So I wandered up the staircase to the restaurant where a kind woman took the clams and prepared them in a spicy tomato sauce. She delivered them to the table several minutes later with large wedges of lime, a bottle of hot sauce, and several cold beers. They were extraordinary.

The flesh was sweet and delicious just as Martha had said. My friends gobbled up the clams then sopped up the sauce with giant hunks of bread for about twenty minutes until we were full. But it was then that I realized there was one clam left, hiding in the bottom of the bowl. It was a closed clam and I’m pretty sure there was a little Martha Stewart there with me that day, whispering in my ear that while yes, clams were a delicious treat, it is the ones that never open that may make us sick.

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Filed under: Food on February 27th, 2008