And you know this because you have done it...there is a difference when you pick them yourself and eat it yourself.
When you buy them from a store, well, okay. They do often taste fine.
But when you get them yourself, trudging up to mid-calf in gooey, stinking black tidal mud which you also have smeared on yourself from swatting at the mosquitoes, black flies, and green heads, and the tingling danger sign when you try to grab a clam and pull it up, that burning tingling that tells you that your finger now has a good gash in it. You pull your finger out, and the bright red blood mixes with that nasty black gooey mud...
Plus, all that bending over, if you don’t have a back that is 100% in good operating condition, you feel it.
But when you rinse them off, and they have no grit, you steam them with some bay leaf, peppercorns, and chorizo, wow...are those things great.
You appreciate them far more than you would if you paid for crappy gritty ones from the store.
The lesson there applies to a lot of things in life. Working for things makes you appreciate them, conserve them, and treat them with far more respect than you would if someone gave them to you.
What a description! I’m right there, wearin my size 14 boots and swattin those flies.