We has six hungry kids, so this was something my parents could feed us that was only limited in quantity by how many bushel baskets we came home with, so we did it often.
My mother would cover the table with newspapers, and with the big pot on the stove with water on the bottom, using big tongs, would transfer the crabs one by one into the pot. She would throw in three or four, pause, pour (not sprinkle...pour) Old Bay Seasoning all over them. Then transfer a few more, stop, and pour more seasoning, making a crab and Old Bay parfait until they were all the way to the top. She covered it and steamed them, and when they were done, she would pile all the crabs on cookie sheets and put them on the table where we would devour them. I was always squeamish about the insides, but I ate the claws and legs. I used to spike my butter just like my mom, with scads and scads of ground black pepper, lemon juice, and...Tabasco sauce! I would extract the meat, and throw it into my butter-bowl concoction to marinate for a few minutes, then take a break from cracking the claws to eat that crab in the hot butter. This was ingrained into me, this love of Blue Crabs.
I went to a conference in Baltimore some years back, and the vendor took us out to a crab house, steamed crabs covered with Old Bay Seasoning, and lots of butter, all you could eat. I tore into those things like a fox tears through a henhouse, and smashing them with wooden mallets, I was piling up carcasses while bits of crab, shell, and crab guts were flying around. The majority of the people in the group were from the midwest, and seeing their faces of fascinated horror as they watched me eat, I am certain they thought I was a brutal, carnivorous madman piling up the crab carcasses trophy-like, looking for all the world like Vlad the Impaler to them.
That’s a nice story, and it starts before the crack of dawn.
I can picture each scene you just described.
Great story!
We didn’t live on the water, and my first encounter with an actual crab was when I was a young teen, sound asleep, and my brother woke me up late at night waving a crab in front of my eyes and saying, ‘Come On!’
He had brought home a bunch, and the rest of the family was at the table devouring them.
I’ve been a fan ever since. (I’ve never seen the attraction in lobster. I will always go for crab.)
I grew up off of a small cove of the Chesapeake Bay. My Dad would love to go crabbing and, of course, we ate a lot of crabs.
Your post made me smile and brought back fond memories.
Baltimore is now a crappy town but THEY STILL HAVE CRABS!
Rules for eating crabs at my house:
-you must learn how to de-shell your own crabs. Do not ask parents to do it. This rule starts around age 5 or so.
-you must take a crab closest to you. You cannot fish around in the pile of steamed crabs for the biggest one.
-you must finish all parts of your crab before you take another one.
Wow.....I live in Delaware now and yes, we have crabs. But that’s only because most Delawareans are now former Marylanders.
;)
You just made me so hungry! What a great memory.
That was a wonderful story. Thanks or sharing.