Aunt Carrie's Clam Cakes

Because laying on the beach wasn't relaxing enough, we spent our last afternoon in Rhode Island just driving around looking at typical New England streets.  We had zero plans and just went wherever the sights seemed worthy.  For me, worthiness is often related to food, so I wanted to make sure we tried some authentic New England seafood.  I missed out on the lobster roll, but I did try a Narragansett specialty I had never heard of: clam cakes.  I envisioned crab cakes made with clams, but discovered they were more like fried dough in funnel cake batter.  Basically, they're New England hush puppies with a faint essence of clam flavor.

We picked ours up from Aunt Carrie's, which [according to local Sam] is supposed to be the best.  They recommend dipping them in clam chowder but we were still too full from breakfast.  That was a big mistake on our part because I could tell how good it would have been.  They were also a cheap snack: less than $4 for half a dozen huge balls of fried dough.  If you are trying to convince yourself these aren't terrible for you, you'll have a hard time as you try to wipe away the grease that results from pulling these straight out of the deep fryer.  A heavy snack like this doesn't seem easy to handle on a hot day, but greasy fingers are no trouble when you get to wash them right off in the ocean.