Clams are found all over the world . There are many varieties. Softshell is actually a misnomer for this clam, whose oval-shaped shell is actually thin and very brittle. Softshell clams aare usually eaten when 1.5 to 3 inches in length. Their shell can't close completely because of a protruding siphon, and they don't live as long as the hardshell varieties.
Real men eat live clams.
Anyway, when I was a kid, the only clams I had ever eaten were fried, and I didn't know they could be prepared in any other way. One time I was waiting for a bus to take me back to college from the Port Authority Terminal on Eighth Avenue in New York City. I was hungry, and nearly broke, and went across the street to a dive to order a cheap meal. I was staring at the scariest food I had ever seen. Joe's Bar was not a place where a college kid could survive sending a dish back to the kitchen, and I was hungry and now broke.