I found this awesome article about quahogging in Rhode Island. It has a lot of technical insight into the equipment used for digging, as well as a substantial overview of the community of quahoggers in Rhode Island.
Another great source I found was the article up on the wall at Andrade's Catch. It was from the March 1997 issue of Rhode Island Monthly on page 31. There was a lot on the encroachment of Aquaculture (farming of shellfish) into the quahogger's territory. It also incorporated several interviews with old timers who've been quahogging all their lives.
The types of documents I'm producing has definitely solidified over the last few days. Instead of a collection of recipes I'm going to focus on the one I'm the most comfortable with (my mom's quahog fish chowder) and make it look like a step by step blog entry. One of my most frequented websites is Tastespotting. It's essentially a photo collection of incredible dishes linked to various food blogs from all over the world (most are in English but sometimes you'll find ones in Italian or Portugese, Ukrainian...).
What I like about this site is a photographic aspect of all the recipes. It's one way the internet has improved the age old cook book. Where as most cookbooks will have a large color photo every few pages (if any at all), the internet allows for photos documenting the preparation step by step. What better way to know if you're doing it right than by looking at a picture? I recently tried this recipe for frozen strawberry squares and it was delicious. As I was following it I really like the easy to follow step by step guide. Tonight I'm making my mom's chowder in the style of Amy's recipe. I hope it turns out okay!
The other thing I'm altering a little bit is the "history of the quahog" I'm still doing that but it seemed kind of disjointed or rather..like it was an element of a bigger document but not really one all on it's own. I was thinking of the menu for the Atlantic Beach Club, a restaurant on the beach in Middletown, and they had a History of Newport on the back of their menu for a while. Since the option of "menu" had been mentioned by Jamie I thought, "Why not have a simple menu (like a chowder shack you'd find on the beach) with the history of the quahog included? Short list of delicious seafood options, couple beers in tap and some summery desserts and you've got yourself a menu!
I had also planned to include a advertisement as a mock battle between New England and Manhatten clam chowder for a made-up seafood restaurant. To relate two of the documents I'll have it be an advertisement for the seafood restaurant.
Whenever my family would have a bonfire on the beach and cook up clams, mussels, sausages and the like we'd call it "The Clam Jam". I'm thinking this is gonna be the name for my new restaurant... :)
No comments:
Post a Comment