Staff Writer

For more than four generations, Harmon’s Clam Cakes has kept its recipe and production behind locked doors.

“Other than the delivery guys, I don’t know if anyone’s ever seen it,” said Steve Liautaud owner of Harmon’s Clam Cakes as he allowed a rare peek behind the veil of secrecy.

The award-winning clam cake maker opened its production plant to a Post reporter to show why it has survived the test of time.

Earlier this month, Harmon’s won second place in the clam cake portion of the Great Chowder Cook-Off, an international competition in Rhode Island. Last year Harmon’s won first place.

“We want every cake to taste the same. When we competed in Rhode Island the clam cakes were taken right out of the box at random,” Liautaud said.

Four years ago, Liautaud bought the Harmon’s name and recipe from the family that founded the company. Part of the bargain was to produce the cakes up to the high standard great-grandmother Ora Higgins invented at Scarborough’s Higgins Beach in 1923.

Liautaud said his fascination with clam cakes started when he was a child in Chicago. He explained there are two different varieties of cakes: The flat variety that Harmon’s makes were developed in Old Orchard Beach. The other, from Rhode Island, are small balls.

As an adult, Liautaud owned three restaurants in his hometown but got tired of the business after his two daughters were born.

After a week’s vacation to Kennebunk, Liautaud and his family decided to stay for a year and soon learned about Harmon’s.

“I heard they were thinking about selling on a Thursday, I had lunch with (members of the Harmon family) on a Friday and bought the company on that Sunday afternoon,” Liautaud said. “They didn’t realize the value of the brand and didn’t realize the value of Maine as a brand. People like small local producers.”

Liautaud said the secret family recipe is only a few simple ingredients – fresh clams, eggs, cracker meal and the special mix of spices.

“It’s a real simple process, I think that’s the beauty of it,” he said.

Liautaud has made some changes, including where he buys the clams. Instead of using Maine clams, Harmon’s now ships in Rhode Island surf clams, which he claims have a better taste and color and are a better product for clam cakes overall.

Though the clams are shipped from three states away, Liautaud can attest to the freshness of his product.

“When I open a bag of the clams, I can smell the ocean,” he said. The company gets deliveries almost every day they are in operation and it is usually between three or four days between the time they are harvested and when they end up inside a clam cake.

He also has changed the kind of flour used in the cracker meal to include all-natural ingredients.

Inside the Harmon’s South Portland production office Liautaud does all the mixing himself, but he said he is only a “control freak” in certain instances.

“If (the clams) are not handled properly, it’s going to show,” he said.

The only complaint Liautaud ever hears about his cakes is there isn’t always enough meat inside. Each cake is made of one-third clam and two-thirds cracker meal to keep the cake together.

“I always tell them it’s a clam cake, not a clam burger,” Liautaud said.

Once the dough is mixed, one worker presses 100-pound batches through a machine that molds it into approximately 900 puck-shaped cakes. Two employees check to see if each one passes the round test and then flips the cakes in breading. One final worker boxes the products to be shipped to restaurants and grocery stores across New England.

Bill Nason has been working at Harmon’s for two years and loves the clam cakes.

“It’s fun working here when the machines are going,” he said. The equipment sometimes breaks down from overwork – Harmon’s produces roughly 500,000 cakes a year.

Cassie Brown is the newest member of the crew, and has worked on the line for about three months. As much as she enjoys the job, she hasn’t sampled the finished product.

“I haven’t yet tried one, but one day I’m going to try it,” she said.

Liautaud said one of the best parts of the job is taking the Harmon’s clam cakes to local fairs and talking with people who have known the cakes their whole lives.

“People will come up, 60, 70 years old and say they remember when they were 5 years old and their parents would take them to the Fryeburg fair and the first stop would be to get a Harmon’s clam cake.”

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.