BY BROOKE HARRIS
reeling, in disbelief that this place that was like a second home could culinarily cut me so deeply. I couldn’ t understand why clam cakes hadn’ t burst free from the confines of Rhode Island’ s borders.
Most Americans have heard of clam chowder. There’ s red, white and the lesserknown Rhode Island chowder, a clear version that relies on clam juice for the base. But most Americans haven’ t heard of clam cakes, small balls of fried dough dotted with minced clams. They’ ve been described as savory doughnut holes, but that doesn’ t accurately capture their soul. Clam cakes are the punk-rock cousin of the fritter world. Sticky, hand-molded dough is dropped into crackling hot oil and what emerges is a golf- or tennis-ball-sized blob of perfection. They’ re an appealing combination of crunch and squish made even better by dipping them in chowder. They’ re not pretty, but for clam cake lovers, nothing else in the fritter category compares.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Clam cakes from Aunt Carrie’ s; Brooke Harris and her husband at Champlin’ s Seafood Deck in Galilee; Carrie Cooper and her husband, Ulysses, opened Aunt Carrie’ s in Narragansett in 1920, now known as one of the earliest clam shacks on record; clam cakes and chowder at Blount Clam Shack in Warren; Iggy’ s began at Oakland Beach in Warwick in 1989; chowder, clam cakes and doughboys from Iggy’ s Doughboys & Chowder House in Narragansett and Warwick; Connie & Ted’ s, a Rhode Island-inspired restaurant in West Hollywood, California, has offered clam cakes and Rhode Island clear chowder for thirteen years.
Here, they’ re always called clam cakes and are usually eaten with a bowl of hot chowder, even in the summer. The combo is popular with tourists that flood the beaches of Rhode Island when the weather heats up. But many of these visitors, even those from neighboring states, had never heard of clam cakes before vacationing in Rhode Island.
“ We always had clam chowder growing up,” says Ken Cornwell, a Massachusetts native who has been visiting Rhode Island for more than forty years.“ But clam cakes I did not have until those first years that we were going to Rhode Island. We just stumbled across them.”
There is evidence of clams being used in fritters in the 1800s, but Carrie Cooper, the
original owner of Aunt Carrie’ s restaurant, one of the earliest clam shacks on record, ran the first restaurant known to sell clam cakes. Local lore says she developed them around 1920 while camping on the beaches of southern Rhode Island. Cooper used clams in place of corn in her fritters, and the enticing aroma attracted the neighbors. After some urging, Cooper opened Aunt Carrie’ s, which recently celebrated a century in business.
It’ s no surprise that clam shacks took hold in Rhode Island. With 400 miles of coastline, locals live, work and play based on the whims of the Atlantic. It’ s not unusual for Rhode Islanders to spend the morning digging for clams, the afternoon cleaning their
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY I JULY 2026 33