steamed crabs

It’s A Delicacy!

A Crab Feast Reminds Me of Good Times!

Maybe looking at the picture, you can’t tell. But, steamed crabs are a delicacy . . . Seriously. Now, it’s best not to think too deeply about crabs – they are a little flotilla of live vacuum cleaners.  So, concentrate on the steaming hot crabs, crusted with Old Bay, which are delectable!

While steamed crabs may not be everybody’s idea of a delicacy, they are my treasured pleasure.  They are a happy memory, too.

Before Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was built, my father bought a bushel or so of crabs right off the workboats with neighbors who then steamed them in the back yard at least once a summer.  Underneath towering oak trees, they piled the crabs on wooden boards balanced on saw horses, and covered in The Baltimore Sun newspapers; an array of mallets, paper towels, small forks and knives; corn on the cob, beer also graced the tables. A very happy memory indeed!

It was at those feasts, somebody showed me how to open crabs and pick them – and I’ve taught others. It’s an important skill to have.

doug and me

Doug and Me

Perhaps that’s one reason Doug married me?

Early in our dating adventures, we went to a crab house outside Annapolis. Texans know a lot, but they don’t always know that smashing a crab is not the way to extract its meat. Doug didn’t; and I guess I impressed him with that skill I learned around those Stoneleigh backyards. Anyway, that afternoon at Mike’s Crab House in Riva, I like to think our relationship deepened!

And another seasoned citizen would agree that crabs are a grand delicacy :

So if anybody wants to get me something, get me 60 crabs – one for each year. I don’t want no diamonds, I don’t want no shoes, I don’t want no party. I want some crabs. ~ Patti LaBelle

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