Everything you wanted to know about clam cakes. Book takes a deep dive into a RI favorite

Just when you thought you knew everything about clam cakes, a new book brings forth some amazing revelations.

The clam cake was born to be a filler. Who could imagine it was an afterthought?

Do you wonder where all the clams are in clam cakes? The truth is, they are hidden in plain sight.

Some clam shacks across the Rhode Island border aren't just making the familiar clam cake. They are amping things up with hot sauces. Oh, the horror.

Like the Ocean State, Virginia and Maine have signature clam dishes described as fritters. But they are as different as they may be alike. And don't ever say fritter in Rhode Island.

All these clam-alicious details come from Carolyn Wyman, an author who fixed her gaze on many a quirky food. She was also raised on clam cakes at Rocky Point and Crescent Park.

"The Great Clam Cake and Fritter Guide" (Globe Pequot, $21.95), a paperback full of photos, recipes and lore, is subtitled "Why We Love Them, How to Make Them and Where to Find Them from Maine to Virginia."

Wyman's seven previous food books have included "Spam: A Biography," "The Great American Chocolate Chip Cookie Book" and "The Great Philly Cheesesteak Book."

"There are so many great foods in Rhode Island," Wyman said during a phone interview from her Philadelphia home. "But it didn’t seem to me there is another one you could write a book on."

"It’s got history. It tastes great. And it’s funny," she said. "It's also nutritionally naughty."

Doesn't that just sum it all up?

But it's crazy popular, too. Clam cakes are served by restaurants, seasonal seafood shacks and even at church suppers, or in the case of Rhode Island, breakfasts. Wyman doesn't miss a trick in her treatise including the fact that the clam cake is a vital part of the 154-year run of the May Breakfast at Oak Lawn Community Baptist Church in Cranston.

What is a clam cake?

To those who've never seen one, Wyman describes them as doughnut holes. She explains they are made of "little chopped up or minced pieces of the toughest clams, extended with flour and sometimes a little cornmeal."

She goes on to say it is "a dough ball that is merely flavored with clam juice and a few clam pieces." This is fine with Rhode Islanders as long as the clam cake isn't greasy or "a gut-ball sinker (so heavy that it immediately sinks to the bottom of your stomach)."

Wyman realized the concept doesn’t travel well. She was having dinner with Philadelphia friends, who by the way love eating meat sandwiches covered in cheese, when she described the clam cake.

"They were like 'No thank you!' "

That's when researching and tasting the clam cake became her pandemic project. She entered the clam shack kitchens, at spots like Aunt Carrie's in Narragansett to see how they were made. Wyman also followed the trail of clams to similar clam fritters from Maine to Virginia. Though they do not have anywhere the popularity of clam cakes in Rhode Island.

While cooking them at home has become a dying art, these clam foods are mainstream in clam shacks and other restaurants, Wyman learned.

The history of the clam cake

"They're only of a certain wonderful time and place," Wyman writes. Many a memory was forged enjoying clam cakes as part of a shore dinner at amusement parks like Rocky Point.

"Clam cakes are associated with summer, and travel and happy times," she said.

"They are not a Lone Ranger food," she added. "They are communal. You are grabbing these with other people. It’s a communal experience."

And though Wyman found family recipes, she traced the origin of the clam cake to the picnic and clambake craze of the mid to late 1800s. Steamboats brought new money from industrialization along Narragansett Bay to resorts and to clam bakes for families in Warwick at Buttonwoods and Oakland Beach and at Fields Point in Providence.

Bigger meals meant bigger revenues, said Wyman. Baked clams could only go so far with chowder. During this era in the mid-1800s, clam cakes began being mentioned on menus. They were served for dessert, Wyman noted.

Political fundraisers of that era also served clam cakes.

It was at the amusement parks that grew to wild popularity, Rocky Point and Crescent Park, where the clam cake took hold as the taste of summer.

Also bringing clam cakes into the 20th century were the roadside restaurants catering to car trips. Wyman notes Aunt Carrie's as one of the first in Rhode Island.

Where are the clams

Jokes about not finding clams in clam cakes are nothing new. But if Wyman learned nothing else in her hunt, she explained the phenomenon.

"Restaurant owners aren’t lying to us about clams being in there," she said.

"The clams migrate to the outside of the batter and burn off in frying. They add flavor to the outside."

All those black marks on the crispy outside of the clam cake are actually the clams that cooked first when they hit the frying oil.

As we eat a clam cake, we are not necessarily aware there are clams there. "It's not the chewy things that you find at the end inside," she said.

Wyman did talk to a clam shack owner who told her who orders clam cakes: "People who don’t like clams or seafood," he said.

Favorite shacks

Wyman doesn't like to play favorites, but when pressed will share some of the best clam cake experiences from her research.

"I like Cap'N Jack's (Wakefield) and George's of Galilee (Narragansett) for their clam cakes' flavor (and Jack's shore dinner hall feel, desserts and my family's history with that place)."

She notes a new spot in Charlestown, N.O. Bar Clam Shack (in the space that was Johnny Angels), "for their clam cake's perfect texture, especially the melt-in-your-mouth insides."

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She likes Macray's Seafood in Tiverton for their wonderful fry and notes Evelyn's Drive-In is also pretty great.

"And of course, Aunt Carrie's, for getting so many things right," she said noting the fry, the flavor, the desserts and the place.

Recipes and more

Wyman shares some 20 recipes for clam cakes and their accompaniments, such as clear Rhode Island chowder and Grape Nuts Pudding in the book.

There are also discussions on clam cakes in popular culture such as on "Family Guy" and about the recent drama at the Rhode Island Building at the Big E, New England's county fair where the state switched the vendor from Kenyon's to Blount Seafood.

Wyman has also done an extensive guide to all the spots to enjoy clam cakes.

Those traveling the East Coast can also follow her guide for trying clam fritters. If you head to the southern Maine coast, you'll find something Wyman describes as more like a crab cake, but delicious. On the Eastern shore in Virginia, you'll find what she calls a "clam pancake" that is deep fried. You can put them in a sandwich.

On the Connecticut shore, you're just as likely to find your clam cake comes with hot sauces to dress them up.

But in Rhode Island, tradition and nostalgia rule. How else could the clam cake remain a taste of summer for so very long?

Carolyn Wyman, who is the daughter of the late Providence Journal executive editor Jim Wyman, will have several book signings coming up. She'll be at Aunt Carrie's in Narragansett for an outdoor book signing with music on Thursday, Aug. 3, 6-7 p.m. There's a signing at the Kenyon’s clam cake and chowder booth at the Charlestown Seafood Festival on Saturday, Aug. 5 from 1-4 p.m. She will give a talk about the history of clam cakes at the Barrington Public Library on Thursday, Aug. 10 at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free but registration online at barringtonlibrary.org is required.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: 'The Great Clam Cake and Fritter Guide' details a RI favorite