The town I live in has an annual resident shellfish permit it allows one peck(10 quarts) per week of each hard shell clams, soft shell clams, and oysters. So we eat them regularly and can share them with visitors as a bonus. There isn't much that is more relaxing that wandering around at low tide getting one's "hunter gatherer" on!

A little trick if you get you clams and throw them into a cooler full of cold seawater and then sprinkle in about half a pound of fine ground corn meal, the shellfish will start to filter and will ingest the corn meal and pump the sand out of their guts. Hard shell clams have a smaller gut so it doesn't matter so much but soft shell clams have a larger gut and can be kind of off-putting if you get one with a lot of sand in it.