Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1252581
NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 18 JUNE + JULY 2020 If there is one thing the North Shore owns, it's fried clams. Let others nitpick who made them first—did they appear in a recipe book in the 1800s? Were they on the menu at Boston's Omni Parker House Hotel? Doesn't matter to us. What matters is that Lawrence "Chubby" Woodman came up with a recipe in 1916 that has remained the gold standard at Woodman's of Essex for more than 100 years. And even in these difficult times, people will drive for hours, across multiple state lines, to get to our "Clam Highway"—otherwise known as Route 133—lined with flats and fryolators from Ipswich to Essex. Customers have been making the trek since before there were traffic lights. "We've been through World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, the recession, the Vietnam War…," says Maureen Woodman, who works as director of catering sales and whose husband, Doug Woodman, is a third-generation co-CEO. "But that's the story of Woodman's. We have survived." Woodman's even survived the Spanish flu—and with that much history on the line, they're not about to throw in the towel. Woodman says the third, fourth, and fifth generations of the family are working together at a brisk pace, showing up every day with fresh ideas, finding ways to meet the challenges that face restaurants now—right down to the number of informational signs papering the building. "We have a lot of signs at Woodman's," Woodman says with a laugh. The wall hangings offer instruction on where to line up, how to order, and where to pick up food —all more necessary now than ever. "I would say we've tripled the signage in the past 48 days. We've spent more time, more money, more energy, and more meetings just trying to figure out what the signs should say, what the signs should look like, where the signs should go." They've even painted lobster traps on the floor to indicate how far apart people should stand— the length of two traps is a good distance, it turns out, and much more on-brand than a taped-down "X." It's all in service of ensuring that customers continue to have a happy—and safe—experience. Woodman's has three acres of parking, which enables people who have traveled from afar to sit and eat the clams in their cars. Workers have blocked every other parking space with cones to ensure social distancing. And the company is in the process of going online for takeout orders. It should be fully operational by June, eliminating the desperate dialing that currently causes annoyance, and sometimes lost business. While the experience is temporarily E AT + D R I N K PHOTOGRAPHS BY PEG RACITI changing, the recipe remains the same. "The food is not a challenge," Woodman says. "We've had the same exact recipe for 106 years." For the uninitiated, Woodman's luscious crisp clams have been gluten-free since the start—well before it was trendy. The recipe is just local bivalves, dipped in evaporated milk and gluten-free corn flour, fried in lard. The Clam Box has been serving up fried clams since 1935.