PEOPLE I HAVE ON IGNORE

Glitterbag isn't even a Eastern Shorer, she don't eat steamed crabs with butter or nothing.

I may have already told you this, but you can't stop me now. In Orlando, Florida, there was a place called the Chesapeake Crab House. The menu was crabs and beer. At the end of each table was one of those gigantic rolls of brown butcher paper. The waitress would come over, pull a sheet of brown paper over the table and take your drinks order. She would then supply you with platters of steamed crabs until you told her you'd had enough. They provide a paper plate and a miniature baseball bat, and she kept the melted butter coming. She would ask, with disdain, at the beginning if you wanted tartar sauce or cocktail sauce. Sometimes i would ask for cocktail sauce just to piss her off.

Steaming shrimps, on the other side, is a terrible job, especially in stormy weather. But they taste the best when eaten fresh ... on board

I thought GB lived in Baltimore...in any case you guys brought up great memories of when I lived in Annapolis...Sunday afternoon feasts ...blue crabs and Pabst

Every so often when I click on "my posts", something pops up that I haven't seen before. I didn't check the date of that post, but he only shows up once in a while, so i thought you meant he had been on hiatus. Trying to follow a particular thread around here is not easy. I see the same threads posted on unanswered, new posts and my posts. Maybe my settings aren't set properly.

Well of course we don't dip seasoned steamed crabs in drawn butter. I also don't live on the Eastern Shore, not much to do there except drive thru on your way to the Ocean. I was born in Baltimore, but live in Annapolis. Melted butter with steamed blue channel crabs is something only tourists do. The last time we visited a crab joint the waitress asked if we wanted melted butter, and we thought she kidding. I said, hey were locals, she laughed and said visitors ask for it sometimes, but I grew up in this area. Baltimore harbor used to bring in fresh oysters and crabs daily, and Baltimore really knew how to prepare them. I don't care if it was your Grandmothers or Obrycki's, it was Devine.

You can dip king crab legs in butter, obviously also Lobster, I guess if you want you can dip them in melted chocolate. I think I'll stick with the old bay and steam for blue channel crabs. I also don't put mayo or catsup on pastrami.

Bet I'd leave you in the dust in a crab picking contest.

In Maryland you use a small wooden crab mallet. They are extremely cheap, but no self respecting crab picker would use anything but their mallet and their hands. One work of caution, don't eat Maryland style crab cakes in Florida or North Carolina or New Mexico. Also, don't try to find authentic Mexican dishes in Maryland. I'm betting there is no demand for an "Olive Garden" in Naples, Italy either.

HA, you and what troupe of Crisfield pickers?

Last yer you were giving me **** about how "real Eastern Shorers don't use butter for their steamed crabs" . I guess you've been told that there is no "Right Way" .
Ive enjoyed em with a Crisfield dip. Do you eve know what that is?

For some odd reason, I keep reading this as the Cheapskate Crab House. Mentioning that is probably as on topic as anything else.

That is not entirely out of line--at that time, 1988, it was $8.99 for all the crab you could eat. Something to warm the heart of any cheapskate.

Glitterbags a "WESTERNER" She lives in the area we call PEEGEE County. Nothin but cheese eatin Govmint workers over there.

Then your waitress was probly from PEEGEE county also. From Chesapeake City own ta Crisfield crabs are ENJOYED about 20 ways, even with cider vinegar or mustard. Plenty of the watermen like their crabs all split and "drowned in "beerbutter"
At the Crab Shack inChesapeake City they give you butter or you pour a trail of Old Bay on the Wrapping paper table cloth and slide the crab through.

I think you've been suckered into believing that "this is only for tourists' line. ANYBODY who goes to OC is damn well a tourist

Eastern Shore is where everybody wants to be. Its not all crapped up with Thrashers French Fry joints or Bars named "Big Peckers". There are still quite coves for kayaking and crab houses that you can only reach by boat

Ahhh the Eastern Shore...Skipjacks and Old Bay

Not even close to Prince George's, I'm 10 minutes away from the bay bridge, 90 minutes from Delaware beaches. Ocean City is nothing like you remember it, nothing but high-rises, if you drive down Ocean Highway you won't see the Ocean, and the dunes are long forgotten.

Since my parents came back from Overseas, I've lived in Anne Arundel Co., the waterways in this area have been very contaminated and many days "no swimming" and "no crabbing" signs are posted. My grandfather used to take us crabbing in these waters, and swimming was never a problem. Biggist danger was jelly fish and the barnacles that grew on the lower steps of the sliding board.

The Eastern Shore is very different than the rest of the state, but practically every county differs greatly from the others. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have country manors tucked away somewhere past the Bridge. Fancy golfcourses and lots of retired SES big deals live there. Crisfield now relies on guest workers to pick the crabs. The watermen are having very difficult times and excessive hardship and the Natural Resources police cant seem to defeat the poachers who use huge nets, and when they are discovered the nets are full of rotting fish. I grew up in AAC when it was mostly farms, I remember the huge tobacco barns, and only vague memories of the actual crops. Fields of corn and tons of other things. Great local roadside stands, my mom would talk to the farmers and buy those wonderful tomatoes, cantaloupe, yellow squash, strawberries, blueberries, plums, peaches, but most of those fruits were only available during season. Now most of those
farms are gone and replaced by houses and malls. Practically all the old unique areas have been homogenized by identical big box stores, restaurant chains and all the other charms of big organization styled communities. We still have working farms and we have some outstanding horse farms.

Maryland is certainly not the largest state in the union, but since WWI we have had a steady stream of immigrants, so we tend not to identify so much with the county as we do the tapestry of intertwined heritage.

I bet I can still wipe the floor with you and your butter dipping crab technique.

You didn't say anything I wasn't quite familiar with except if you follow the Easetrn Shor even below the Bay Bridge0 there are still many huge frms of crop variety.

I never rush when Im eatin crabs. Mny crabs you Western Shorers get are actually from Indonesia, so you have to watch out when you go to Lexington Market.

We spend a lot of time in Brodkill Beach which is about 6 mi N of LEwes Del, and a few miles E of the town of Milton.
We also crash with friends and relatives who own places off Galena Md and Rock Hall.
A friend owns a small farm where they raise Belted Galloway cattle and row crops.
Much of the land in Eastern Shore is protected under the farm preservation programs nd the biggest changes Ive seen are the new Giant tree nurseries N of Cecilton .
There are still huge tracts of forested land and very large grain farms around Snow Hill and Berlin (although BErlin is slowly starting to become "Gentrified " by all those DC types, who will buy up properties, turn the into Long Island style mansions and then wonder why all the "poor folks"dont live around here any more.
We go THROUGH OC maybe once a year to buy rock candy and visit Wallops Island where a friend has a semi annual brick oven" pizza fest. They make a pizza with crab meat which is ok but Id rather eat the crabs just with a Yuengling Chesterfield Ale.
Don't eat your crabs too fast, youll miss the experience.
The rule is, "never pick crabs so fast that you fill up"

PS, down in Crisfield the biggest watermen crab sources are from the Tangier Island fleet, those guys are gonna keep crabbin till their island gos under.

We go over to Tangier once or twice a year to hunt paint, arrowheads along the runway of the airport,and eat "arsters and we stay over at a B&B.

Listening to you two extolling the virtues of all this stuff makes me want to pack it all in and buy me a big workshop shed overlooking the beach.

I can then learn the local lingo and sing " Farewell and-a-do" all day while advising tourists that they're gonna need a bigger boat.

Very evocative!

Ooo-arrr!

I want me some lobstah . . .

Oh the lobster dies in a boiling pot
Oh pity the bluefish, too
But they're quickly gone
And they suffer not
Like the ache i bear for your my dear Maryann . . .

You don't need a bigger boat for most crabs. The only exception is the "Monster Crab of Tilghmans Island. This was a crab of legend who, on especially warm summer nights when everyone had their windows wide open to capture the bay breezes. The monster crab would come out of the water and with his long crabby pincers, would grab kids from their beds and then eat em with butter.

There was no escape , you just hadda be lucky enough not to live in the area where he frequented. Something my dad never told me where was. SO I went through life , all traumatized and having lots of appointments with analysts, until I learnt that, the best way to get rid of monster crabs is to eat their young.
That's where the soft shell crab sammich started, so help me.

Harrr!

I've put me deposit on a bug-eye and I'll be seein' ee next Spring when the shoals be flipping.