Clam Pizza — From the Waters That Feed Us, a Lowcountry Kitchen’s Coastal Spirit

The reporter came. Her name is Jasmine Williams — no relation to my Williams, though the name made me look twice — and she is young, maybe thirty, Black, from Atlanta, and she arrived at my kitchen at ten in the morning with a notebook and a photographer and the slightly nervous energy of a person who has been told she's about to meet someone important and isn't sure what "important" means when the important person is a seventy-two-year-old woman in an apron.

I cooked for her. Of course I cooked for her. I made shrimp and grits while she asked questions, and the cooking was the answering, and the answering was the cooking. She asked, "Mrs. Henderson, why do you write?" I said, "Because cooking for six people isn't enough. I want to cook for everyone. The blog is how I cook for people I'll never meet." She wrote that down. She asked, "What do you want people to know about Lowcountry food?" I said, "I want people to know that this food was built by people who had nothing and made everything. That the greens came from Africa. That the grits came from the Muskogee. That the shrimp came from the water. That the love came from the women who put it all together and refused to let the cooking die, even when everything else was being killed."

She stopped writing. She looked at me. She said, "Mrs. Henderson, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard about food." I said, "That's because you're young. Wait until you've been cooking for sixty years. The beauty gets deeper."

The photographer took pictures. Me at the stove. Me with the skillet. Me with Michael on my hip and Pearl in the bouncy seat and the kitchen full of the life that I have spent seventy-two years building. The pictures will be in the newspaper. The newspaper will be on refrigerators and in scrapbooks and in the memories of people who read it and think: that woman feeds people. That woman has been feeding people her whole life. That woman is what a kitchen looks like when it's loved.

Jasmine ate the shrimp and grits. She ate two bowls. She said, "Mrs. Henderson, this is the best thing I've ever eaten." I said, "Jasmine, wait until you taste the cobbler." She laughed. I wasn't joking.

Now go on and feed somebody.

When Jasmine left that morning, full of shrimp and grits and already curious about the cobbler, I found myself thinking about all the other ways the water feeds us — not just the shrimp, but the clams, the oysters, the whole living world underneath that surface the Muskogee and the Gullah women always knew to respect. This clam pizza is something I turn to when I want that same briny, honest flavor without standing at the stove for an hour; it’s humble the way all good coastal food is humble, and it carries the water right up onto your table where it belongs.

Clam Pizza

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 lb pizza dough, store-bought or homemade, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 (6.5 oz) cans chopped clams, drained, 3 tablespoons clam juice reserved
• 1 cup shredded low-moisture mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Place a baking stone or inverted heavy baking sheet on the center rack and preheat your oven to 500°F (or as high as your oven will go) for at least 30 minutes so the surface gets very hot.
2. Make the garlic oil. Warm 2 tablespoons olive oil in a small skillet over medium-low heat. Add the sliced garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until fragrant and just barely golden, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the reserved clam juice. Set aside.
3. Shape the dough. On a lightly floured sheet of parchment paper, stretch and press the dough into a rough 12-inch round, working from the center outward. Don’t worry about perfection — rustic edges hold more flavor.
4. Build the pizza. Brush the garlic oil evenly over the dough all the way to the edges. Scatter the mozzarella over the surface, then distribute the drained clams evenly. Sprinkle with Pecorino Romano, red pepper flakes, oregano, and black pepper.
5. Bake. Slide the parchment and pizza onto the preheated stone or baking sheet. Bake until the crust is deeply golden and the cheese is bubbling and lightly browned in spots, 12 to 15 minutes.
6. Finish and serve. Remove from the oven and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Scatter fresh parsley over the top. Slice and serve immediately with lemon wedges on the side for squeezing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 420 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 46g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 780mg