Mollusk on Match.com: no bites

A columnist may love a clam, but where will they make a home together?

I love clams, but to the clam, it doesn’t feel like love.

If you really loved a clam, you would treat it well, you would check in on it from time to time, you would send it a card on its birthday. You wouldn’t steam it or fry it and eat it. That’s not love.

Nor would you cook it and sell it to someone else so they could eat it. That’s not love either. That’s crass, heartless profiteering. At least from the clam’s perspective.

My love for clams is the other kind of love, the kind of love that’s totally selfish and not entirely healthy, at least mentally.

Sure, a pound of steamers is only 50 calories: healthy, yeah, but only physically. Mentally, you’re still a mess, because you’re eating the one you love, for the sheer joy of the taste. You don’t care about the clam’s situation, how you wrecked its plans for the weekend.

And no way you can think of clam-eating as healthy if the clams are fried. A single fried whole-belly clam is about 40 calories, and who ever eats just one? Nobody. At 400 calories’ worth, you’re just getting started.

So let’s not pretend this is healthy. This is just fabulously yummy, and I’m never going to stop.

Accordingly, the most important person on the planet is the clammer: that wonderful person who goes out onto the clam flats and finds the clams.

This is a terrible job. You’re bent over, working in wet sand or mud, lifting heavy, sticky stuff again and again. This is not casual beachcombing. This is an exhausting, muddy, time-consuming full-body workout that ruins your clothes.

And afterwards, the clammer still has to do the most urgently important bit: selling the clams to someone who will get the clams to me.

Last week, to my horror, this entire system came to an abrupt halt.

A huge pressurized sewer pipe busted open in Haverhill, pumping gunk into the Merrimack River. Haverhill’s sewage could seep through the coastal ecosystem into our clam flats — and our clams. So our dear Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries declared an emergency and shut down our clammers.

Maybe, heaven help us, the flats are open again as you read this. But as I write, our clammers are still shut out, the clams are safe and snug in their beds, and every day, our restaurants come closer to a cataclysmic clam-out.

Even more serious: The clammers are out of work. We’ve got to do something, people!

So here’s a revenue-generating plan to benefit our beloved clammers — a lucrative new Ipswich tourism initiative:

Catch-and-Release Clamming!

Book your fun family mock-clamming escapade today!

When you arrive at the clam flats, you’ll find a perfect replica of a run-down clam shack, serving as a kiosk for ticket sales.

A mere $40 will launch you on the adventure of a lifetime!

There’s also a little rental shop where you’ll find waders, available in several sizes, plus an array of hoes and rakes — choose your favorite length, color, and style. (But no buckets: Remember, this is catch-and-release!)

Now you’re ready for your clamming caper to commence. Even though you’re just an ordinary person, you have the privilege of joining actual clammers on their miserable rounds!

Trudge along behind jolly real-life clammers, out onto the flats. Observe the professionals’ well-honed technique. Then try it yourself!

Yes, of course you’re crummy at it, but it’s sloppy fun. And you have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re helping clammers and their families keep body and soul together until they can do genuine clamming again.

Also, think about this: The clams are so happy! That clam gets rudely scooped up out of his home, he figures he’s fated to the boiling oil — but then he’s suddenly home again with the wife and kids, because you threw him back.

The Circle of Life! The clam you chuck today may be the clam you chomp tomorrow.