Clams

Labor Day weekend.  For many it signals an end to summer and a start of fall (football season).  To me it is the perfect time to spend on or in the water.   As part of our holiday weekend we went clamming.  As a product of the Midwest with a sojourn to Texas, clamming is new to me.   Yet somehow we found ourselves wading into Peconic Bay (Peconic Bay lays in the north end of Long Island and empties in the Atlantic Ocean.)   We caught a nice basket of clams.  I learned that like walleye the big ones go back.  As I was consuming our catch, raw with a little lemon juice, I could not help but think about paralytic shellfish poisoning.  What is that saying…? “You can only eat shellfish in a month that ends in R”.  Its September 1, I’m OK!  

Paralytic shellfish poisoning is a food borne illness caused by saxitoxin, a sodium channel blocking neurotoxin, and characterized by tingling or numbness beginning in the perioral area and spreading to the neck and face followed by headache, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.  Saxitoxin is produced by marine algae, mostly dinoflagellates (genus Alexandrium) which are consumed and bioconcentrated in shellfish.  Implicated sources include saltwater mussels, saltwater clams, oysters and pufferfish.  Toxin containing shellfish are primarily found in the cold water regions on the coasts of northeast and northwest of the U.S.  PSP is a problem in the coastal water of northern New England, but has been reported in the waters off Long Island. 

 
Clamming was fun and the clams were delicious.  Thankfully, it was Labor Day weekend