Interesting,i make some quahog jewelery and many years ago my sister in law saved me some shell from some 'Stuffies" when i seen them i thought i struck gold,all purple colored it was amazing,but they were very thin and unsuitable for jewelery making,i did manage to make a few pair of large earrings. Did some searching and found some in the North west coast but not a lot of info.
You might be the right person to ask about, I make Quohog Jewelry and often buy shell pieces and whole shells on ETSYS, always looking for the ones with lot of purple and on the thicker side.Almost impossible to find these days, unless you have the right connections or u live there or know the right fishermen. These days i hear the chinese are buying up all the shells these days,and making Cabishons to sell themselves,they doing a good job also. It seems like they getting the cream of the crop of thicker shells!
I think the ones you're looking for are the inshore quahog, Mercenaria mercenaria. What I learned in this video is that that kind is not commercially competitive with farmed pacific clams or deep water species at least not for mass market chowder and stuffies. M. mercenaria is the kind you get if you order at a raw bar, but those are very small shells. So you need to find New Englanders who are making chowder or stuffies, recipies that use the largest clams, at home with clams they caught themselves. It also seems that clams from some clam beds have more purple but I'm not sure what the factors are.
This was fun. Thanks for the info
Going out to dinner with David is always an adventure.
Interesting,i make some quahog jewelery and many years ago my sister in law saved me some shell from some 'Stuffies" when i seen them i thought i struck gold,all purple colored it was amazing,but they were very thin and unsuitable for jewelery making,i did manage to make a few pair of large earrings. Did some searching and found some in the North west coast but not a lot of info.
We must get to the bottom of this.
You might be the right person to ask about, I make Quohog Jewelry and often buy shell pieces and whole shells on ETSYS, always looking for the ones with lot of purple and on the thicker side.Almost impossible to find these days, unless you have the right connections or u live there or know the right fishermen. These days i hear the chinese are buying up all the shells these days,and making Cabishons to sell themselves,they doing a good job also. It seems like they getting the cream of the crop of thicker shells!
I think the ones you're looking for are the inshore quahog, Mercenaria mercenaria. What I learned in this video is that that kind is not commercially competitive with farmed pacific clams or deep water species at least not for mass market chowder and stuffies. M. mercenaria is the kind you get if you order at a raw bar, but those are very small shells. So you need to find New Englanders who are making chowder or stuffies, recipies that use the largest clams, at home with clams they caught themselves. It also seems that clams from some clam beds have more purple but I'm not sure what the factors are.