Clambake

The clambake or clam bake, also known as the New England clambake, is a traditional method of cooking seafood, such as lobster, mussels, crabs, scallops, soft-shell clams, and quahogs. The food is traditionally cooked by steaming the ingredients over layers of seaweed in a pit oven. The shellfish can be supplemented with vegetables, such as onions, carrots, and corn on the cob. Clambakes are usually held on festive occasions along the coast of New England, and at fundraisers and political events. Some restaurants and caterers offer clambake-style food. It is known that Native Americans in what is now the eastern United States developed techniques to bake clams, at least in Florida. Contrary to legend, though, American colonists did not learn to enjoy baked clams from Native Americans. The colonists did not consider clams to be an acceptable human food and instead fed clams to pigs, except during times of famine. Author Andrew W. German concluded, "There is no question that Native American peoples have been consuming clams for four thousand years but there is little evidence that they prepared them in the traditional New England way. Perhaps they smoked them for preservation, and they probably roasted them in open fires, but neither oral traditions nor early European observations refer to steaming in rockweed. And though we like to imagine the Wampanoags teaching the Pilgrims how to bake clams, there is good evidence that the early European settlers actually eschewed clams as food fit only for the poor, eating them as little as possible."

Source: Wikipedia