Crabs, Yankee Style!

I was invited to eat crabs with a friend's family yesterday. It was a perfect way to spend an afternoon, getting to know new friends and learning to eat a new food.

They caught the crabs in the water right outside their back yard, and steamed em up right before we got there.  The steaming part is what makes them Yankee Crabs.  The cooks are visiting from Maryland, and they steam them with a mixture of beer and water, and heavily sprinkle them with old bay.  The southern way to make these is to boil them. I look forward to trying that too!

 

It was only my second time eating crabs(whole crabs I mean), and was much better than the first time, which was a miserable failure.  I had such a hard time figuring out how to get the crab meat out, that I gave up after my first one.

Like with crawfish, there is an art to eating the little rascals, and I finally had 3 people to teach me how to do it.  Each showed me their own way, and I finally got the hang of it.


After we finished up, there were four crabs left.  With my new found skills, I picked the meat and the hosts insisted that I take it with me.  Oh, am I glad they did!

For breakfast this morning I made a breakfast bowl with: 
louisiana hot sauce and old bay seasoned grits
topped with eggs scrambled with onions and peppers
roasted tomatoes from another friend's garden
 lump crab meat with a little bit of cider vinegar