There are some things in life that I just know I am meant to do. Mushroom hunting, gardening, foraging and clamming, mostly anything that requires obsessive behavior and lots and lots of dirt. So, when had the chance to sink my feet into some soft goopy mud and search for mollusks, I jumped in, literally. This past weekend, my friend Alison Roman invited 30 friends up to the North Fork of Long Island to camp out by the bay, roast a whole pig and hunt for the makings of a restorative clam chowder (we ate the chowder on Sunday after a late night, hence its medicinal properties).

We were on the hunt for both manila clams and razor clams, the former to be found by digging your heels into the mud, feeling around for something sharp about 6″ of the way down. At that point, you gotta dig with your hands and unearth the little sucker, setting aside the large ones for chowder and the more delicate for eating raw. Team #2, arguably more ambitious, was out on the shore on their hands and knees, digging even deeper into the sand in search of razor clams. These are the crème de la crème of the clam world, the ones with the best flavor and significantly more challenging to cull, but totally worth the effort.

Once we clammed to our heart’s content, we headed back to shore to “purged” the clams of their sand.  This is a process that is generously done for you when you buy clams at the fish monger. To purge clams, they are submerged in saltwater for 30 minutes when the water is changed out. This process is repeated two or three times until they have pushed all the sand out of their systems. After you scrub their shells clean, you are ready to make that chowder.