This spread, clockwise from top: Cleaning
the clams is a group effort. Gretchen and
Charlotte Petersen enjoy cups of chowder and
oyster crackers sourced from Blount Seafood.
Volunteers donning gray 2016 Fishermen’s
Clambake T-shirts pour melted butter into
ramekins. Jack Reynolds, who founded the
Westport Fishermen’s Association in 1983 and
organized clambakes as a main fundraising
mechanism, died in June of this year. Here, he
poses with a locally built Eastport nesting
pram raffled off at the 2019 event. A volunteer
skins yellow onions for the bake. Fragrant
hardwood — think: cherry, maple and oak — is
stacked with granite stones and set on fire; the
wood burns to the ground, transferring an
intense amount of heat to the stone.
62 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l SEPTEMBER 2020