Cycle 4 – Item 72

18 (Mon) March 2013

Conch Shell Pasta with Manila Clams and Clamshell Mushrooms in Cream Sauce

3.0

by me

at home

-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

solo

Form and function.  After sautéing various herbs/aromatics in oil/butter, I tossed in a couple handfuls of whole clams and covered the lid for a few minutes to steam them; once they opened, I discarded the shells and proceeded to finish the sauce, tossing everything at the end with shell pasta.  As an unintended consequence, each of the clams ended up falling into a pasta shell, along with some sauce, to make a nice little shellfish package, which now seems obvious in retrospect.  I’ve done conchiglie with scallops, which are bigger than the pasta shells, so the 2 components remained separate, and thus the symbolism had seemed a bit specious.  Yes, even now, I do realize that a clam isn’t the same thing as a conch (and yes, a scallop is part of a clam).  Incidentally, by total coincidence, the mushrooms just happen to be called “clamshell” mushrooms in English, a fact that I discovered after the fact.  Practical and poetic.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)