Clams Casino

Clams casino is an appetizer of clams baked in the shell with bacon and green pepper. In southern New England today, it usually is also stuffed with bread crumbs, possibly an influence of Italian stuffed mussels. The classic presentation of two soft shell clam bellies has also been widely replaced by a single littleneck or cherrystone on the half-shell. A widely reprinted error in a food encyclopedia had it invented in New York City in 1917. The town of Narragansett, Rhode Island, however, has reclaimed the dish. Providence Journal reporter Arline A. Fleming sent food historians back to the sources for an August 2005 article that establishes that the original dish was invented in 1894 by Julius Keller at Louis Sherry’s Narragansett Casino for socialite Mrs. Paran Stevens. Research by Barry Popik had found the recipe in a professional dictionary of about 1908 and on a 1916 restaurant menu in Washington, D.C.