The clambake is a way New Englanders savor the last days of summer.
At Allen’s Neck, a corner of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, where farmland meets the coast of Buzzards Bay, a Quaker meeting has hosted an annual clambake since the 1880s.
This year, the clambake carried on as a hurricane blew past offshore. Members say the event has been canceled just three times: for the Great Depression, World War II, and the first year of the COVID pandemic.
These photographs capture the careful cooperation it takes to host the Allen’s Neck Clambake, where meeting members cook a dinner for over 600 paying guests using methods and ingredients that haven’t changed for centuries.
As neighbors work in harmony to fulfill small parts in a timeless ceremony that will likely continue after they’re gone, many describe feeling a rare sense of belonging and spirituality. Many volunteers learn their roles at the clambake as children, reprising them until they teach their own children and grandchildren.
Like many old rituals, the clambake begins with a massive fire.
The clambake begins with a fire. The woodstack is filled with cantaloupe-sized rocks.
Ben Berke / The Public’s Radio
When the fire burns off, a smoldering pile of rocks is left behind.
Ben Berke / The Public’s Radio
Rockweed begins to sizzle as it’s laid on the hot stones.
Ben Berke / The Public’s Radio
Onto the sizzling seaweed go wooden trays of clams, corn, sausage, sweet potatoes, and fish.
Ben Berke / The Public’s Radio
To seal in the steam, the clambake is covered with wet canvas sheets, which puff up while the food cooks.
Ben Berke / The Public’s Radio
A woodstack the size of a small log cabin burns to the ground, leaving a smouldering pile of stones and embers. The cantaloupe-sized rocks have been sourced from nearby farms, where they appear each winter, heaved up by the freezing and thawing of New England’s rocky soil.
Volunteers take the painstaking step of separating the rocks to sweep away the ashes and coals. Some attendees joke the woodsmoke imparts too much flavor for the clambake’s WASP-y hosts, though the reasons for this extra step, uncommon at other clambakes, may be lost to time.
“That’s the way it’s always been done, so it gets done that way every year,” said Dave Harrison, who has attended since 1973.
Rockweed from the nearby Westport River is spread over the hot rocks, perfuming the area with a delicious steam. Then, onto the sizzling seaweed go trays of clams, corn, sausage, sweet potatoes and fish, which volunteers have spent the morning neatly assembling.
The fire crew works in unison to spread wet sailcloths over the hot mound, which puff up like a beached whale. The first time Kathy Neustadt witnessed this step, she said she began to cry, sensing an ancient knowledge peeking through the generations.
“I said ‘I don’t know what this means, but this means so much,’” Neustadt said. “‘I can feel it.’”
Neustadt went on to write a book, Clambake: A History and Celebration of an American Tradition, that traced the cooking method back to Native Americans and became the definitive book on the subject.
After about an hour, the food is ready. A retired Quaker minister from New Bedford leads the large crowd through a few minutes of quiet prayer. The silence, a defining feature of Quaker services, is broken by a cry of “Let’s eat!”
Guests sit down at long picnic tables as multigenerational crews of volunteer servers fan out to deliver the food.
“We joke that there’s no sacrament in Quakerism except the clam bake,” said Andy Pollock, a farmer who attends the Allen’s Neck Friends Meeting.
The typical plate includes some eccentric Yankee sides, like bread baked in a jar, boiled onions and a mushy blend of bread and crackers called “dressing.”
The various elements arrive simultaneously, still hot to the touch, the result of careful timing refined over more than a century.
“I’ve seen barn raisings, I’ve seen cider pressings,. I’ve been in harvests, and I have never seen a community of dispersed people come together and put something so organized on a plate with that kind of fire,” said Feather Windwalker, who joined the Allen’s Neck Friends Meeting a few years ago.
It’s only when the guests have finished their pie and coffee that volunteers finally sit down to eat.
Ted Robbins, a plumber in Dartmouth who does not attend the Quaker meeting, said he works the event every year anyway.
“You’re never gonna go to another place with this many people that just cooperate and are selfless and don’t complain,” said Robbins. “I don’t eat clams, but I enjoy the experience.”
Hundreds of people find this feeling of unity every summer at the Allen’s Neck Clambake. For those who don’t, the food is still delicious.
