Celebrities' Recipes | Lillian Hellman's Basil and Clam Sauce

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Lillian Hellman's Basil and Clam Sauce

Compiled by Vicki McClure Davidson

The fascinating, often controversial American playwright Lillian Hellman wrote a number of powerful, realistic plays that made her one of America's major dramatists. She explored highly controversial themes, many ahead of their time that reflected her strong, outspoken political and social views. She was born in 1906 New Orleans, Louisiana, which influenced much of her subject matter. Her body of work includes The Children's Hour, In Days to Come, Watch on the Rhine, Another Part of the Forest, and what is considered her most powerful play, The Little Foxes.

Hellman had friendships with many notable authors of the day, including Ernest Hemingway, and was in a long-term romantic relationship with popular detective-story writer Dashiell Hammett (with whom she lived off and on for decades, but they never married). Hammett was a prolific writer and is best known for his stories, novels, and/or screenplays of The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and The Glass Key.

Hellman received a number of honorary degrees and awards. She was nominated twice for Broadway's Tony Award: in 1957, as the author of the book for the Best Musical nominee Candide and again in 1960, as the author of the Best Play nominee Toys in the Attic.

Before her death in 1984, Hellman collaborated on the memoirs/cookbook Eating Together: Recipes and Recollections, with writer and acolyte Peter Feibleman. The remarkable reminiscences and opines of food and food preparation frame the recipes in Hellman's half of the book (it's split into "His Way" and "Her Way") in a charming yet firm way; they offer Hellman's opinionated input that typically characterizes her memoirs and plays.

This is Hellman's easy recipe for Basil and Clam Sauce — while she doesn't specify, this is a sauce for hot pasta. It is much like a pesto, although it lacks pine nuts or almonds. Hellman leaves out other pertinent information, such as what kind of pasta is best to use and if the sauce should be mixed with the pasta while hot, or served on the side. I'll let you decide.

I think this sauce would also be good on biscuits, rice, and toast. Hellman also doesn't provide information on how many people this dish serves. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it will serve 2 to 4. However, I think my teen son could eat all of this in one sitting after a swim team practice.

Lillian Hellman's Basil and Clam Sauce

4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. olive oil
1 bunch basil, picked and minced
1 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. crushed chili pepper
20 little neck clams, scrubbed
1/2 c. white wine
Salt (to taste)

This sauce should be only made with fresh basil. I grow it all year round in a window box. It's a hardy herb and can take a beating.

Sauté the garlic in 2 T. olive oil. Add the basil, pepper, and chili pepper. Add the liquor from the clams and the white whine, and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the clams. You must be careful not to cook the clams too much, because they will toughen. Five minutes is enough.

Taste the sauce for seasoning — it should have a strong garlic flavor.

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Sources:
Encyclopedia of World Biography, Lillian Hellman, (http://www.notablebiographies.com/He-Ho/Hellman-Lillian.html).
Hellman, Lillian, and Feibelman, Peter, Eating Together: Recipes and Recollections, Little Brown & Co., Boston, MA, 1984.
IMDb.com, Lillian Hellman, (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0375484/).

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Lillian Hellman's Basil and Clam Sauce