Home Food: Tea Party Clam Strips

Questions of place have always fascinated me. Of course everywhere is technically a place, a point in space. But there's a difference between a place and a Place, with a capital "P." Some Places are more substantial than others in their placeness, if you will. They throw off a vibe that is certainly influenced and shaped by their various cultural elements but at the same time is greater than the sum of these parts. It's holy to me, the experience of it being one that I have always identified as the nearness of my God. There are many ways to experience that nearness and feeling the uniqueness of a given Place is a big one for me.

I think my obsession with Places stems from the way I relate to where I am from and how that has made me who I am. I am from Maryland, the greatest state in the union bar none (sorry if you're from one of the other 49 states, it's nothing personal). Apparently, Marylanders are unique in their reverence for their home state. I remember once, I was walking down the street in Newport, Oregon with two Maryland friends who were temporarily living there. We stopped and looked up at the front of an old sea-weathered looking inn only to see a Maryland flag fluttering in the breeze. At my college in North Carolina, a guy I graduated with always hung a Maryland flag out of his dorm window and then wore the thing around his shoulders when he walked accross the stage at graduation. It's like, if we are living in another state, we find it necessary to let everyone know that we're from Maryland. I have it on good authority from multiple sources that people from other states don't act like that. Usually, I have a theory about why things are the way they are but on this one, I got nothin'. I am content to simply feel my heart smile about it.

In any case, my exploration and pondering of this question of Place has always contained food as an important element. All my favorite places are defined, in large part, by the food I have experienced there. Philly is spumoni from Anastasi's, prosciutto and fresh mozz pinwheels from DiBruno brothers, and, yes cheese steaks. (But not from Pat's like everyone thinks. The best ones actually come from Tony Luke's over near the fish market and while you're there you might as well pass on the cheese steak and check out the roast pork sandwich with extra sharp provalone and rabini because it blows the best cheese steak straight outta the water.) North Carolina is barbeque. Not just one kind either, but a subtley different kind for each part of the state. Daytona Beach Florida is Angel and Phelps chocolate and sandwiches from the Flagler Fish Company. Even places I haven't been to are defined by food. My family's homeland of Lithuania, where I haven't ever visited (YET!) is dumplings, meat, potatoes, sour cream, and poppy seeds in some combination I have not experienced but can feel in my bones as hearty and good.

When I became aware that I was living in exile in North Carolina and that my heart was begging me to go home to Maryland, I started craving and cooking foods that invoked this place to me. Old Bay on everything, tapioca pudding like my dad always made me growing up and that you can buy pre-made at the grocery store, scrapple (delicious block of corn meal soaked in pork broth that you slice and fry up nice and crispy). Food, as much as missing my parents and friends and the landscape and the country and the city and, well, pretty much everything, drew me home. It was a major bummer when I thought I was gluten intolerant because pretty much every food that spoke of home to me, that I was looking forward to eating when I finally got to come back here, has gluten in it. Downey's fried chicken, Procolino's pizza, Berger's cookies, beaten biscuits, Lake Trout sandwiches, fish fry fare, scrapple, prezzle dogs from the Crumpton sale, Amish baked goods at the farmer's market...oh sigh, it just wasn't fair. Thankfully, two months of rest and being very nice to myself but also asking myself a lot of questions, and a couple weeks of thyroid hormone replacement therapy have healed me of gluten intolerance and I can eat it again. My gratitude for this fact cannot be overstated. Every bite of gluten-containing foods that I thought I could never have again is a prayer in itself. My body and soul whisper in unison "thank you." I am much happier this way.

And so, to express my gratitude, I plan to post a smattering of posts called "Home Food" to honor the foods that are uniquely of this Place to me, that make me know I'm where I belong, and that I am so very thrilled to be able to eat once again. I was going to call it "Maryland Food" but the truth is I grew up traveling to Philly a lot and to Deleware and really some of the foods I would want to share are not in Maryland, though most are. Home food for me seems to be a combo of authentic Italian influence, typical Northeastern greasy fare, Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish food, some things that are distinctly Maryland in that they meld north and south (they don't call it the Old Line State for nothin') and, of course, seafood. First up is a food that I truly only eat once a year at the Chestertown Tea Party. The Tea Party is a street festival that my colonial home town holds every year to celebrate the pre-revolution protest that was staged here in support of the Boston tea party. People dress up as British soldiers and Tories and colonial radicals and throw each other and some boxes of tea into the Chester River. Complete with canon fire, very fun no matter how many times I see it. Besides the reenactment, the Tea Party is special for the food that is sold there, particularly these tasty clam strips. Breaded and deep friend clams. They are equal parts greasy, crispy, and, um, oystery (I guess?). It's not easy to describe, you really have to eat them to know what I mean. The best I can do for you is show you these photos. I love how they turned out.