- I grew up on the coast.
We lived all over Oregon.
But I've just been around wild product my whole life.
Growing up on salmon, trout, a lot of ocean fish as well.
When I started working in restaurants,
even high level ones, I was kind of disappointed
in the quality of certain products.
A lot of people just don't even know what the potential
for these products are.
(gentle classical music)
(water bubbling)
This is the butter clam.
And we're really trying to showcase this ingredient
because we think that it's a world class quality of clam.
Hasn't really caught on at all yet
as far as food grade goes.
You are able to dig them in safer areas and stuff
but it's a tremendous amount of work for a small yield.
So any sort of harvest that is going to have
a really fruitful amount has to be done by diver harvest.
And the highest population density of these clams
exists in Tillamook Bay.
Here in Tillamook Bay, they're native, high population,
really delicious but just haven't really been in the market
or haven't been introduced to the market.
So we're trying to work with fishermen like Brad
and to help introduce these to other chefs
and just popularize the ingredient.
- We'll probably get a few butter clams.
But mainly I just want to show you the ecosystem.
I don't know if you know much about clams
and how they live on the substrate,
but on the surface you have the cockle clam,
which can actually move throughout the bay,
they hop on their tongues.
Below them you have the butter clam,
about eight inches down.
And then about a foot to about two feet down,
you have the horseneck clam.
(wind whooshing)
- I think the butter clam is definitely one of the best
eating clams in the world, especially for eating raw,
it's so unique to this bay.
They're actually found from Alaska to Northern California
but these ones specifically are just such a higher quality
than any of the other ones that we've had from other states
or other areas because of the ecosystem
that they're found in.
- When we go down there, there's probably ten generations
of giant clams that have bred and died off.
So a lot of times you see shells.
And people worry about the shells
when actually it's the opposite.
The shells are the one thing that's keeping this
the Mecca for clams on the West Coast.
The number one issue I see with new divers
is equalizing as they go down, knowing that every inch
is a different pressure change and the first four feet
is where most of the pressure change happens.
So learning to equalize, you should always feel comfortable
the whole way down.
We've got about 65 pounds for ya.
(belt rattling)
If you don't protect your hands or your knees,
you will shred through your stuff in one day.
Especially on a strong current
because you're trying to hold your position
and there's so many clams, I'm talking,
we got the shells but in the shells you have thousands
upon thousands of pounds and all it takes is one knee
or one shell fragment and it'll shred your gloves.
- First time that we ever went down and dived,
yeah it's definitely really nerveracking.
To deal with different tides, pretty murky,
the current's really strong.
You're constantly going in and out
of these really dangerous ranges for your ears and sinuses
because of having to equalize back and forth
between the depths.
Sport boats riding right over the top of you
while you're diving.
We wear 65 to 100 pound weight vest
and it gets you right down to the bottom.
The air tank is hooked up to a compressor
on the boat, into hoses instead of air tanks.
Constantly getting tangled up.
So yeah it was terrifying the first time,
to be completely honest.
(haunting music)
(water gurgling)
As far as what's going through your mind,
like one step down the ladder at a time
and then you kind of like get comfortable
and you just try to go as slow as you can going down,
'cause you have to go down slowly.
If you just go straight down to the bottom,
you blow your eardrums out.
(gentle orchestral music)
So once you get your feet on the ocean floor,
it's definitely a very relieving feeling.
'Cause it is like dropping into a really fast moving river.
The butter clam is six to ten inches down
underneath the sand, so to access those or any of the clams
you basically brush, start brushing away the sand
and the shells to expose the clam.
So you want a tide that's outgoing so that the current
will take the sand away
and then it creates visibility
to see what's left underneath.
Once the sand clears, you see millions of clams
like a number that you couldn't even count.
Just a really good feeling to be able to see firsthand
the health of the ecosystem and the massive population
of these clams and it really makes you feel good
about being able to harvest them
and introduce them into as a new item in the market.
It's rare to have an opportunity to be that connected
to the process of gathering your food.
(water bubbling)
As far as finding these clams,
you can't find them anywhere else.
And that was great, it was good to take you guys down.
We'll bring a bag up right now.
(clams cracking)
(upbeat classical music)
Once you start eating them,
you're like how is this not a thing that people eat
in restaurants here?
So we just learned essentially by trial and error
after deciding that we wanted to work with these.
The best ways to prepare them.
- We shuck these clams live.
We don't do anything to them previous,
they're not steamed or blanched or anything.
So we get right in there.
First muscle off and we just follow the line of the shells
so we don't cut into the clam.
We got right back the other way along the skirt,
kind of follow the line of the shell once again here.
Free that other adductor muscle.
So there we have the clam.
Remove the top shell and then,
the adductors, we're gonna come back
on the other side, free them from the base,
just like an oyster.
You can see those two nice big adductor muscles,
by far my favorite part of the butter clam.
It's extremely firm and crunchy,
it has the texture of like a very fresh scallop.
Really clean flavor.
It's the best part of the clam for eating raw.
This butter clam is a red meat clam
and it has to do with the ecosystem that they're living in.
And what they're filtering, what type of sand and rock
and also what type of microalgae that they're eating.
And that microalgae adds a lot to the flavor of the clam.
The next move here is to break down
each piece of the clam.
The adbuctor muscles will pop right out.
Beautiful and they're huge.
So you're already getting two pieces of meat
that are that big and it's a very small portion
of the actual clam itself.
The skirt of the clam is this next part.
This is what helps seal the shell.
So we just split that into two different strips.
So then for this next part, we have the mantle.
This is the stomach of the clam,
which is not a part that we use for eating raw.
But this part all along the edge,
is something that we do use,
so we just basically follow that line
where the color difference is
and remove that.
Last part that we remove from the stomach of the clam
is the siphon, what the clam uses
to filter the water in and out.
One tube pulls it in and it processes through the stomach
of the clam and all micro algae and small different things
that the clam can eat are filtered through the stomach
and then the pure bay water is put back out.
So they're an extremely important part of the bay
because they filter everything.
And we're gonna serve them
all the different edible parts of this here.
Our adductor, our clam skirt.
Our mantle.
And then last is the siphon.
So as you can see this siphon just looks exactly like
a really tiny geoduck.
Well I think we wanted to serve them as natural as possible,
in their natural form, minimalist garnish
and in their own shells.
So it sort of just kind of took place
from trying to keep it as original as possible.
Kind of took its own form.
The accompaniment for this clam is a Ava Bruma winter melon
from Ayers Creek Farm in Gaston, Oregon.
As it's an Italian variety of melon
that it's not grown in winter but they call it winter melon
because it's a storage melon and you use it in winter
after it's been sitting on the shelf for several months.
And so this juice is fermented liquid
from the melon so it's just you know,
added two percent salt to the melon juice
and then we let it ferment at room temperature
with kelp in it so it's like a kimchi basically
but a white kimchi.
And this rind is stored in brine.
It does develop flavor over time, nothing too assertive,
it's just more of a textural component.
We really liken the flavor of this clam to melon
so that's why we serve it with this,
'cause it just is a nice accent to the flavor.
Doesn't compete with it, just elevates it.
And it balances it as well.
And more of that olive oil.
It's extremely dangerous and it's really hard work
but it's definitely worth it.
(gentle piano music)