Redmen deliver oak-smoke flavor with clam bake

Every year, the Wareham Redmen bring together smoke, steam and a couple hundred hungry people on the first Sunday in August for its annual clambake. 

This year, the bake came off in sweltering weather on Sunday, Aug. 3.

The Redmen bake the clams using a very specific method. 

“We try to stick with Indian traditions,” said Bake Master Jeff Reed. 

The bake is wrapped by large tarps, heated with oak wood and steamed with seaweed, which the Redmen gathered in boats along the river the day before, said Reed. 

2024 has seen one change to the time-honored tradition. The Redmen’s clambake crafting recipe now uses a bed of steel ingots, rather than a bed of stones. 

Redman Jay Maloney said the rocks split apart from the heat, necessitating the order clear out the baking pit and search its surroundings for new stones every year. The steel ingots don’t have that issue, he said, and so can be reused year-in, year-out. 

“It makes it a little simpler for us to use the ingots,” said Reed. 

All the ingredients put together give the bake a unique flavor. As the clams, hot dogs, potatoes, corn and fish baked away under the tarps, people crowded picnic tables under tents with their appetites ready. 

Mike Faria and Tim Nolan come all the way from Falmouth for the Redmen’s feast. It was Nolan’s second year coming, and Faria’s fourth or fifth. 

It’s “tough to find a good bake anymore,” said Faria. He deemed the Redmen’s bake to have “good food — excellent.”

“I’m more of a boil guy,” Nolan admitted. But he agreed with Faria that the Redmen had a good bake. 

While some attendees have been coming for years, others have been coming for decades. 

Norie Collins said the bakes have been going on as long as she has been alive. She remembers, as a little girl, hiding under the tables as rain came in over the event. 

Eben Bumpus said he was there for the Redmen’s very first bake. The racks they used were his idea, he said. 

It’s a “generational” event in Wareham, said Collins.