Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Well-made
New England clam chow-
der
is studded with fresh clams and thick-
ened with cream. Recipes vary, but they
never
include tomatoes. (Tomatoes go in
Manhattan clam chowder.) If you want
clams but not soup, many places serve
steamers,
or soft-shell clams cooked in
the shell, as an appetizer or main dish.
More common are hard-shell clams—
littlenecks
(small) or
cherrystones
(medium-size)—served raw, like oysters.
Traditional
Boston baked beans,
which date from colonial days, when
cooking on the Sabbath was forbidden,
earned Boston the nickname “Bean-
town.” House-made baked beans can be
hard to find (Durgin-Park does an excel-
lent rendition), but where you do, you'll
probably also find good cornbread and
brown bread
—more like a steamed pud-
ding of whole wheat and rye flour, corn-
meal, molasses, buttermilk, and usually
raisins.
Finally,
Boston cream pie
is golden
layer cake sandwiched around custard
and topped with chocolate glaze—no
cream, no pie.
