Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 July 1884 — A BIG THING IN BIVALVES. [ARTICLE]

A BIG THING IN BIVALVES.

Single Oysters Weighing Three I'oamh— Single Cliunn that l ive Men Lugged into a Dining-Room. “Speaking about shells,” said an eminent conchologist, holding upj a magnificent orange shell as if it were a gem, and breathing upon it preparatory to polishing it with a chamois skin, “reminds’me of a practical joke that some friends of mine got up a little while ago: You see, we had a club of shellmen and met in each other’s houses once a week, and once a year we gave a dinner, to which each member was allowed to invite a friend, TvVO of the guests at the last dinner were’ Englishmen, and as one of them expressed a desire to see something of American oysters, and the other had inquired about it was decided to give them a surprise, and to say we did so doesn’t express it. We met at a memGer’s house up town, and about Twenty sat down to dinner, the two Englishmen being seated on the right and left of the President, as sober-faced a professional wag as ever graced a gown. After the blessing; -which, was delivered in the Sioux language, two waiters came in, bearing a meat-platter of the largest size, and, lifting it with the greatest difficulty, placed it before one of the Englishmen, whose eyes began to open as he saw that the dish contained six oysters on the half-shell that looked as though they would weigh three pounds apiece. They were.brought from Old Point for the occasion, you see, and are what are cal ed coons - nearly a foot in length, and of gigantic proport ons. They projected from the dish like great blocks of stone, and a small part of one would have been large enough for two men for a whole meal. “ ‘We generally begin on six of these,’ said the president. ‘They’re are a little undersized, but it’s late inthe season.’ “ ‘Tlidse are not all for me?’ said the horrified Briton. “ ‘Certainly,’ replied the president, ‘and if you want any larger ones; say the word.’ “Finally the victim lifted the great morsel that looked like an underdone ham, got it half way to his month, and then with a shudder dropped it. ‘Good .heavens!'he said, ‘you don't mean to say that you eat six of these? I can’t go one. Yon see I havn’tbeen educated up to it. I must give it up.’ “He was urged politely, but it was an impossibility; the oysters. were—refused and the next course brought on, every one looking as sober as a funeral. I tell you it would have made a horse laugh to have seen those men, look as the waiters dame in. The course was baked clams, a la Rhode Island, and, as before, it took two men to bring in each plate, piled with clams so enormous that it took one’s breath away, and tile Englishmen looked on in downright horror. By actual measurement each clam was nearly a foot in length, and nearly all weighed more than six pounds. By the time half a dozen plates were brought in the table was about covered. The victims sat there in helpless amazement, while the rest pretended to pitch in. Did they eat them? I should say not. Nobody no- . ticed them, and finally, when they had eaten some small clams that had been tucked in for their benefit, the monsters were cleared away. The next course was called deviled tridaena, and one of the guests being urged to try some, a moment later five waiters came struggling through a door with an enormous half-shell of a clam, that actually weighed 250 pounds. Tins was lifted to the table and put before the now demoralized Englishmen, who looked so utterly dumbfounded that the whole party broke into a roar of laughter. They then saw they were the victims of a joke, and it took well.” “But how about those big clams? Were they made up?” asked the visitor. “Not a bit of it,” was the reply. “They were, I guess, the first of newlydiscovered edible clams of the Pacific that had ever been brought to New York for the East. They have been known some time, but not to the general public. A naturalist traveling some months ago near Puget Sound found that the geoducks, as they were called, were considered delicacies, and were in reality giants of the soft clam race. Just think of a common soft clam about a foot in length containing a mass of flesh weighing more than six pounds. In taste they don’t seem like ordinary clams, but rather like crab boiled, or the Southern salt-water crawfish or whip-lobster. When you go claming for these giants yon have a day’s work ahead of you. In the first place, you can get at them only on certain times when there is an extreme low tide, and then you want a gang of men or dredging machine to dig them out.— New York Sun.