I was playing Pictionary at a party last night. We were all drinking and being unruly so you can imagine the hilarity that ensued when the word on the card I drew was BEARDED CLAM! Certainly the Pictionary folks must have a good sense of humor, but since this was not a sexual version of the game, we discussed whether there is such a thing as a “bearded clam,” other than a vagina.
I googled the phrase and after sifting through Urban Dictionary definitions and Bearded Clam Bar and Restaurant listings, I found a recipe for Bearded Clam Chowder that sounded like it was written by someone from The Onion and pictures of various species of clams and mollusks with beards drawn on using MS Paint. Funny, but not helpful. Not finding a straight answer has made me even more curious and I keep wondering if there’s an animal I was supposed to draw instead of a hairy taco.
So can someone tell me, please, is there such a thing as bearded clam?
Many molluscs attach themselves to rocks with particularly tough filaments called byssus. Old documents do speak of this as the “beard” of the mollusc. Usually the term is associated with mussels, rather than clams. But there is certainly some justification (with a little latitude) for calling this a “bearded clam”
But I’d wager that the vast majority of folks who use the term “bearded clam” don’t know about this, or would care if they did. Since, in common use, clams don’t have beards, the term only has one interpretation, like a pink taco.
