THE GREAT CONCH INCIDENT
Sometime in the 1950’s, after a big storm, there was a bounty of conch shells that washed up on the beaches of Ocean City. Now, it was not unusual for beachcombers to scour the beaches of Ocean City for all kinds of things to wash up on the beaches. They may find an old Spanish coin from the 1700’s or a piece of unusual looking driftwood. I guess the same circumstances exist today. There has never been a situation like the one in the 1950’s.
My grandfather liked to fish in the surf at Ocean City and he went over after this storm to do a little fishing. When he saw the amount of conch shells along the beach, he saw dollars, not conch shells. Upon returning to Salisbury, he called his old friend, Norm Holland, at Pocohantas. Having used Pocohantas many times for their sand and concrete in his construction business, Norm was more than willing to grant my grandfather a favor. So, one of Pocohantas’ trucks went to Ocean City and completely filled it with conch shells. They then proceeded to dump them at the end of my grandfather’s driveway at the corner of Church and Truitt Streets. My grandfather was ecstatic by this display of his new found cache of wealth. He knew that conch shells sold for good money and he was going to clean up.
At this point things started going downhill. Its seems that a portion of the conchs still contained their live inhabitants. Today, that would be a nice bounty, as conch, now known by its Italian name of Scungilli, sells for about $4.00 a pound. That was not the case in the 1950’s. At best, it was fish bait. Time brought about the death of the conchs and the subsequent accompanying fish smell to the whole neighborhood. Needless to say, people started to complain and he saw no solution except to have the Pocohantas truck remove all the conchs and the offending smell.
The only good that came out of it was that my grandmother took a few of the empty shells and lined a walkway in her garden. At the time they were exotic and were a nice addition. I still have some of the shells from her garden and a nice memory of “the great conch incident”.
11 comments:
A pleasant and light read. I guess Mr. Chevallier is the SBYnews version of Edna Davey Muir. However, in the gritty world of the blogosphere a little fluff can go a long way. Joe, the balance is fine, I am not a big fan of morning network news shows either, so consider the source.
The picture of the conch shell brings back memories for me, but not of ocean city. my parents brought one back from their honeymoon in the bahamas in l954. it has a high gloss on in and is beautiful, but the best part of it is lifting it to our ears and hearing the sounds it imits. to this day whenever i go home to visit, i always sneak off into the living room, put the shell to my ear, and drift off to the bahamas for a few minutes. cj
Conch is kind of tough and makes good crab bait, almost as tough as beef lips
Ahh , those were the days George.
The thrill of victory and the
agony of de-smell. A funny memory.
I erred in identifying Conch as Scungilli. Surf clams, the kind used to make clam strips and chowder are known as Scungilli. Conch meat is conch meat and is sold as such. Sorry for the misinformation. I will correct my records. George
As a child, upon finding one of them on the beach, I was told to place it next to my ear, and I would be able to hear the sound of "the surf" from which it came...
The largest clams are called Quohogs, they make chowder clams. Clam strips are made from mano clams, the clams that look like they have a wiener also known as soft shell clams. The wiener is cut in half and breaded. I've been working with seafood for over 30 years. Clam strips are not made from large quohog clams.
It's like clams in that if you cook them too long, they will be like rubber bands. Like squid, cook very hot very fast or verrrrry slow. Conch is delicious!
man, like if you can hear the ocean when you put a conch shell to your ear, like can you hear the circus when you put a peanut shell to your ear?
To ANON 1:18
Clam strips are currently made from clams of the spisula solidissima genus. They are called "surf clams". They are 6-7 inches wide.Quohogs are smaller (3.5-4.5 inches wide) and are called "ocean clams" and because they don't have a "tongue" or "foot" large enough to make into strips, they are ground up for use in chowder or sauces.
I worked at Nanticoke Seafood for 30 years and we never used a mano clam for strips. George
Thanks for the wonderful story about our grandfathers. It's nice to hear that he was as generous and compassionate then as he was in my youth.
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