Beautiful Swimmers

Beautiful Swimmers, a nonfiction book by William W. Warner won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. It is about Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, blue crabs and watermen. The book takes its name from the generic name of the blue crab, Callinectes, which is Greek for "beautiful swimmer."

If you are a native Marylander, these beautiful swimmers have been an integral part of your life. I have caught them, been bitten by them, steamed them, eaten them, and instructed others how to execute the most efficient means of revealing and harvesting their delicious meat. I have also been known to intentionally let them loose on the kitchen floor to scare the dogs and the children.

They are the definition of summer on or near the Chesapeake Bay of Maryland.

I now live over 300 miles from the Magothy River which was the home Bay tributary of my youth. With a peach basket nestled in an old innertube, tied with a length of clothesline around my waste, I would stalk the grassy bottom of the shoreline. Stealthily moving my crab net ahead of me, I would scoop my prey. One crab at a time I would fill the basket as it floated with me on the journey. Mom would be ready with the speckled black crab pot, the Old Bay seasoning, and the vinegar and beer. Steaming would take 30 minutes, and we would sit down at the wooden table on the screened porch for the feast.

In addition to the fresh river harvest near Mago Vista Beach, home sources for “hard shells” were Bay Island Crabs off Wilkens Avenue in Baltimore City, National Pike Crab House on Route 40 in Ellicott City, and various other restaurants that would sell you a savory bag out the kitchen door. Supply was never an issue in those days and sizes varied from small to jumbo with several variations in between.

My earliest memory of eating crabs was sitting by my father’s elbow at a political fundraiser at the Hollofield Area of Patapsco State Park. Dad’s Catonsville Democratic Club would reserve a large park pavilion for one or more crab feasts a summer. Seated at long picnic tables club members and guests would consume a seemingly endless supply of crabs and (because it was a private event) National Bohemian Beer. Dad divided his time between feeding me and showing me the ropes of how to pick a crab. Like many families, we have time-honored technique passed from generation to generation. Please note.

Step one is preparation of the eating area.

Back in the day newspaper was spread on the table several layers thick. In the digital age, brown craft paper is a good substitute. Crab mallets, paring knives, saltine crackers, margarine, paper towels, extra Old Bay, and of course beer.

My Uncle Andy used to say that the translation of the Maryland Motto: “Fatti maschii parole femine” is hard crabs go good with beer. I was informed by my eighth-grade social studies teacher that that is incorrect, but it did give her a laugh. The correct answer is “strong deeds gentle words”.

Since I’ve interrupted myself anyway, here is a further detour.

Some of you are probably old enough to remember Graham Kerr, one of the first TV chefs whose show The Galloping Gourmet aired from 1968 until 1972. Very British and very entertaining, Kerr was also a regular on the Tonight Show and the Mike Douglas daytime program. On one such guest appearance on the Mike Douglas Show, Mike asked him, of all the meals he had experienced throughout the world, which one would he describe as the most unique? Without a moment’s hesitation, Kerr said, “eating Maryland hardshell crabs off a newspaper tablecloth.” We loved that back home.

Step 2 is adjusting the expectations of children and newcomers to this unique dining experience.

The evening will be more Italian or Spanish than American. Not the food, but the vibe, pace, and duration of the meal. Eating crabs is as much about social interaction as it is about dining. Conversation, laughter, storytelling, and, yes, competition are important parts of the event. Properly picking crabs takes a while and gives us ample time to reminisce about other summers, other meals, and other key events in our lives. Sharing our thoughts, our picking techniques, and our triumphs are all important.

The intricacy of the steps that I will describe below take time and should not be rushed. Haste makes waste and can result in missing some wonderful bites of crab. By comparison, other forms of eating are too easy and don’t have the same “effort to calories” ratio of hard crabs.

If you are eating a steak, you just cut off a piece, put it in your mouth, chew, and swallow. Now picture pinching off a tiny piece of steak and pulling it gently through a keyhole. It would take you a long time to consume that piece of meat, wouldn’t it? But you wouldn’t be full so fast. You wouldn’t feel like you had a cannon ball in your stomach. You would also have more time to chat with your friends.

Eating with your hands also has a social leveling effect. Hierarchy slips away when like cave dwellers or Robin Hood’s Merry Men you pinch your food and lick your fingers. People with good manners are indistinguishable from slobs and we all mix so much better.

Hayden and I introduced crab picking to some New England friends some years ago who, given their proximity to the lobster harvest, I had assumed would take to this new species with aplomb. Wrong. When they opened their first crab, almost in unison they asked, “are we supposed to do this with our hands?” My impatient answer having invested in the crabs, the beer, and the newspaper, was “well you can do it with your feet, but I assure you it will take longer.”

So, some how-to suggestions.

Step 3: The Constance Art of Crab Eating

1.   Choose the largest crab available while nonchalantly pretending that any one will do.

2.   Remove the crab claws (the large things with the pliers on the end) and put them aside. NEVER CRACK AND EAT THEM FIRST. I don’t know why, but just never do it.

3.   Flip the crab on its back (big smooth shell-side down)

4.   Unlock the crab by opening the apron (not yours, the crab’s). The apron is that thing that looks like a margarita glass with the base missing. Pull the stem of the glass up and fold toward the north (no compass necessary). Pull off the apron and discard.

5.   Remove the top shell of the crab. Put your thumbs in the crack at the top of the shell (where the top of the martini glass had been attached) and separate the shell.

6.   Discard the top shell (unless you are a crab mustard lover...no details, if you know, you know).

7.   Scoop out all the indescribable gradoo in the center of the crab and discard. Scrape the lungs (little gray things) off the crab body and again, discard. (I don’t know the technical names for all the parts I have just outlined. I asked my dad once and he just said, “don’t worry about it. Just don’t eat it cause it’ll kill you.”

8.   Leaving the back fin (the leg with the little frisbee attached) and all legs attached to the body (this is vitally important. If you pull the backfin and the legs off the crab prematurely, you are no longer a Constance and have no way of rejoining the tribe.)

9.   Now crack the crab body in two. There is a definite valley running through the center of the crab body. With one backfin to your right and another to your left, use your thumbs to crack the body into its two sections.

10. You are at last ready to get to some crab meat and start eating.

11.  Note that the backfin and each leg has a corresponding chamber of meat in the body of the crab. (These are actually visible and defined by trapezoidal lines on the crab body).

12.  Beginning with the largest chamber (backfin) use your thumbs to break the shell and loosen the crab meat. Then take the backfin in  your hand and gently twist it to separate it and the backfin meat from the crab body.

13.  Peel any remaining shell from the meat and hold the backfin and the attached meat aloft and show all of your table mates how skilled you are. Then quickly eat that backfin meat before you are wrestled to the floor by your jealous family.

(Note. This is also the point where you have a decision to make. If there is a small child within reach, you may wish to offer them this heavenly bite of backfin. But be advised, they will be back time and time again throughout the evening. Yes, it will give them a lifelong taste for crab meat, and yes, they will eventually be able to pick their own. But in the meantime, it can become a royal pain in the ass.

Another thing. Children and some adults will be afraid of eating some shell along with the crab. Both shell and crab are white and somewhat translucent. Assure them that there is little danger. They will soon learn to feel the shell with their fingers and separate it before popping the crab in their mouth. But when some sneaks by and they feel it in their mouth they can reach in and gently take it out. Another advantage of eating with your hands.

14. Now repeat steps 11 and 12 with each of the tiny legs and  correspondingly tiny chamber of crab meat in the body. After you eat the meat from the body, crack each small leg at the midpoint and squeeze a predictable half inch of meat out of each leg. Small, but sweet.

15. Repeat all of the steps for the other half body but distract small children while you consume the second portion of backfin for yourself.

16. Once you have carefully picked and consumed all meat from the crab body, you MAY NOW direct your attention to the crab claws.

17. In separating the claw sections, you are sometimes lucky enough to  draw moist meat from the “non-pliers” end as you carefully pull it apart. This has everything to do with how moist the crab is, so don’t consider yourself a failure if this doesn’t work out.

18. Please use the Constance patented crab mallet technique. Do not simply mash the claws with the mallet like some Neanderthal man. Be an engineer and use the mallet + paring knife technique. On the thickest part of the claw in question, position the paring knife blade-side-down and tap it with the mallet. You will get a perfect crack to then snap the claw and reveal the sweet contents. You’re welcome.

The Cleanup

The first step in the cleanup is collecting your crab mallets, paring knives, leftover saltines, margarine dish, and beer bottles.

Once clear of those items, the advantage of newspaper or craft paper tablecloths is that you simply roll the crab remains up in the paper, put the rolled paper in a plastic trash bag or two and take the bags to the car.

The car?

Experienced crab connoisseurs know that the last place you want to put crab garbage is in your own trash can. In 48 hours the spoilage will emit a bouquet that would knock a buzzard off a honey wagon. You don’t want that trash in your zip code.

We used to have a favorite roadside picnic area on Route 40 that had a favorite roadside trash can. Once the sun went down, we’d swing by and deposit our feast garbage there. These days, the dumpsters behind restaurants are a good place to deposit these remains. Illegal, but necessary.

Regional Quirks

Different regions have different traditions regarding hard crab consumption. The first time I ordered crabs at an upscale restaurant on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, they came out of the kitchen steamed, but with no seasoning and resting on a bed of lettuce. I felt as though I had landed on Mars.

Hayden’s Virginia family has a tradition of picking all the meat from the crabs and hording it in individual small bowls. At the end of an evening of inhuman deferred gratification, they add butter, vinegar, or more Old Bay, and eat the pile with a fork. A damned fork.

In addition to an odd approach to a crab feast, it requires either unwavering trust in your fellow diners or the ability to drink beer without visiting the toilet for the entire evening. Bowls of crab meat have occasionally been hidden but never stolen. It does add some drama to the feast, but I still don’t get the point.

Final Memories

A couple crab eating memories before I let you go.

In my blog Talkin Baseball, https://www.constancelyhoping.com/post/talkin-baseball I tell the tale of Hall of Fame pitcher Early Winn. He and his wife became friends of my parents in the 1940’s and when Early would come to Baltimore to play the Orioles, we would always get to see him.

Early loved Maryland hard-shelled crabs and despite what it did to his gout, he would count on my dad to pick him up after the game and drive him to a crab house for a night of eating, drinking, and storytelling. We went to a tavern in Irvington on one occasion that proved memorable.

Early complained to the waitress that their beer mugs were way too small and asked to see the size of their small pitchers. She brought one out and for the rest of the evening, it became Early’s glass. My dad said, “a pitcher drinking from a pitcher…seems natural to me.”

My first trip to a Raleigh seafood market to buy live crabs also proved memorable. As had been my habit, I carried my crummy crabs ice chest into the store which got some strange looks. I walked over the to the bushel baskets filled with scratching and fighting Blue Crabs, pulled the tongs off the hook and started choosing my crabs. As the first one landed in my cooler the proprietor shouted out, “Hey man you gotta put ’em in them brown paper bags.”

Weird. But I was new to the Carolinas so followed the instructions.

When I had chosen two dozen crabs and dropped them into the bag, I carried them up to the counter and told the man that I had two dozen. He ignored me and just put the bag on a set of scales to determine their weight. So for the first time in my life, I bought live crabs by the pound, and even at 2014 prices, found them to be a darn site cheaper that way.

I will leave you with a quote from Mrs. B, someone who would never miss a family crab feast when I was growing up in Baltimore. We liked the crabs spicy in those days and would always pile on the Old Bay.

With tears streaming down her face, she’d always say, “Oh, they burn so good.”

Everything about Beautiful Swimmers is good.