Eddie Inglese, owner of Tutti Mangia Italian Grill, is an old East Coaster — not old chronologically, but rather someone who venerates traditions, particularly when they involve food celebrations. He’s always on the lookout for staging events that bring back “physical” memories for people, the smells and tastes that are more deeply planted than intellectual memory and leap back into consciousness in Technicolor.

It’s been my experience that East Coast Italians love clambakes as much as Portuguese fishermen from Provincetown in Cape Cod. It’s a conduit back to kinder and gentler times when family was paramount.  So, what is a clambake? Well, clams do play a role, but it’s the East Coast cold water lobster that plays the central part. The meat is sweeter and whiter, there’s more of it, and you can burn at least 25 calories tearing out every last morsel of meat.