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Do you eat crab?


Road Runner

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Many years ago, when the EPA had little control over what was dumped into the local rivers, I worked in a Naval Shipyard.  In those days, there were few restrictions on what the ships could discharge into the water.  The crabs were always in abundance around the ships' hulls in those days, especially near the ship's sewage discharge ports.  I'll let you put 2 and 2 together.  :(

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1 minute ago, ChrisL said:

 Yeah I like them better than lobster.  We have Dungenese crabs out west which are my favorites.

But would you eat lobster if you had to eat it without any sauce or butter?  Or crab without some sort of sauce or seasoning, such as Old Bay?  Both seem bland and tasteless compared to a good fish.  I don't eat them because they are scavengers, but I don't see the attraction anyway.   I'd much rather have chicken.

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10 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

But would you eat lobster if you had to eat it without any sauce or butter?  Or crab without some sort of sauce or seasoning, such as Old Bay?  Both seem bland and tasteless compared to a good fish.  I don't eat them because they are scavengers, but I don't see the attraction anyway.   I'd much rather have chicken.

I generally don't season crab or lobster.  Drawn butter will make me sick if I eat too much so I generally eat it plain.  I also enjoy a crab boil that is seasoned but more often than not will eat it plain.  

I really like all seafood, lobster included but i prefer crab over lobster.  Yeah man I love fish too, tuna, salmon, mahi mahi, its all good but i like shell fish more. 

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I love them. Blue crab, Dungeness, stone, King. Not a big fan of snow crab. MOst crab doesn't need butter to taste good, it has a mild sweetness. Blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay require Old Bay though. Give me a bushel of jumbo jimmies, a six pack and all afternoon. I like lobster, clams, oysters and mussels too.

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2 minutes ago, groupw said:

I love seafood in general. Crab is a favorite. Being about as far away from oceans as a person can get, I know what we get isn't quite what we get on the coasts or the island, but we still seek out those who have a little better. 

For the Alaskan crab like King, Snow, etc. it's pretty much the same everywhere.  They are processed at sea, so even if you are in the home port of a crabbing boat, you still get frozen like everyone else.

Fresh dungeness, blue, rock, etc is another matter.

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4 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

I bet there's a story or two behind this comment...

Nothing could have prepared me for the experience of raising chickens. I had no idea. 

I still eat chicken and think these animals are charming and sweet, but ...

Pigs, chickens, cows, rabbits, fish, etc., they all have some disgusting habits if you spend enough time watching what they do. I owned a large fish tank, where I kept some carnivorous fish.  The Oscar would have eaten me, if I could have fit into its mouth.  Don't get me started on how gross rabbits can be.

What I have learned is that species and the food thing is a giant circle of life.  Ideally, you operate on a zero waste cycle.  Humans have broken this cycle.    

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14 minutes ago, Reverend_Maynard said:

For the Alaskan crab like King, Snow, etc. it's pretty much the same everywhere.  They are processed at sea, so even if you are in the home port of a crabbing boat, you still get frozen like everyone else.

Fresh dungeness, blue, rock, etc is another matter.

I generally by my Dungenese in season live and boil them.  Soooo much better that way.

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10 minutes ago, Reverend_Maynard said:

For the Alaskan crab like King, Snow, etc. it's pretty much the same everywhere.  They are processed at sea, so even if you are in the home port of a crabbing boat, you still get frozen like everyone else.

Fresh dungeness, blue, rock, etc is another matter.

Dungeness tastes better, but shelling is an issue.  I like the big snow crabs, because of how easy it is to get a big piece of meat on your fork. 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

Nothing could have prepared me for the experience of raising chickens. I had no idea. 

I still eat chicken and think these animals are charming and sweet, but ...

Pigs, chickens, cows, rabbits, fish, etc., they all have some disgusting habits if you spend enough time watching what they do. I owned a large fish tank, where I kept some carnivorous fish.  The Oscar would have eaten me, if I could have fit into its mouth.  Don't get me started on how gross rabbits can be.

What I have learned is that species and the food thing is a giant circle of life.  Ideally, you operate on a zero waste cycle.  Humans have broken this cycle.    

I used to have Oscars in a 50 gallon tank.  I used to say the same thing! One time I put some feeder fish in the tank while my wife was watching. One ate the fish, crushed it in its mouth and then spit it out! I swear to god it never did that before and am convinced it did it on purpose to freak out my wife.... 

 

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3 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

Dungeness tastes better, but shelling is an issue.  I like the big snow crabs, because of how easy it is to get a big piece of meat on your fork. 

 

 

Agreed.  We don't get the dungeness around here, of course, but blue crab is good, stone crab down in FL is awesome, too. 

King crab even better than Snow, of course.  If you can afford it.

Some of the crab cakes I've had in MD have been some of my favorite foods ever. Love that jumbo lump!

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Just now, ChrisL said:

I used to have Oscars in a 50 gallon tank.  I used to say the same thing! One time I put some feeder fish in the tank while my wife was watching. One ate the fish, crushed it in its mouth and then spit it out! I swear to god it never did that before and am convinced it did it on purpose to freak out my wife.... 

 

I didn't like to feed them feeder fish, because it made a mess.  One of the few times I did it, I watched the feeder fish still alive in the oscar's mouth.  It was gasping and trying to free itself as the oscar munched it.  That was the last time I fed live fish to my oscar.  I also noticed that after a couple of live feedings, it got way more aggressive. It would almost try to leap out of the tank at me when it was full size. That fish was mean.

Another time, I had african cichlids.  I bought a blue lobster to introduce to the tank.  It was a pretty big lobster.  I figured it would be fine. Well, to my horror, the lobster ended up being a very expensive feeder fish.  They tore it apart.  There was nothing I could do but watch and scream.

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No crab. Taste of crab does nothing for me.  MOF, I can't even taste it. So I am not about to go cracking and digging for it. ;)

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38 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

I didn't like to feed them feeder fish, because it made a mess.  One of the few times I did it, I watched the feeder fish still alive in the oscar's mouth.  It was gasping and trying to free itself as the oscar munched it.  That was the last time I fed live fish to my oscar.  I also noticed that after a couple of live feedings, it got way more aggressive. It would almost try to leap out of the tank at me when it was full size. That fish was mean.

Another time, I had african cichlids.  I bought a blue lobster to introduce to the tank.  It was a pretty big lobster.  I figured it would be fine. Well, to my horror, the lobster ended up being a very expensive feeder fish.  They tore it apart.  There was nothing I could do but watch and scream.

Yeah i stayed away from African Ciclids.  My Oscars were really chill and were not destructive at all.  I fed them a dozen feeders once per week which they lasted all of 2 minutes in the tank and pellets the other days. They would perk up whenever they saw me and if I stuck my hand in the tank to clean it they would rub up on my hand.  They were really cool fish.

They got to around 2 lbs each and i had them for a couple of years. I had to move and didnt want to mess with transporting such large fish nor have the tank in the new place so I ended up donating them back to the fish store I got them at as display fish.  The guys came to my apt with big buckets and hauled them out.  

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6 hours ago, Road Runner said:

Lots of people around here consider them excellent, especially steamed alive.  

I never cared for them.  They are scavengers and eat all sorts of disgusting things.  I'll stick with tuna and salmon. 

Steamed alive is right - If you can't get them to move a little before putting them in the steam pot, you throw them away.

In Maryland many people put them in ice water in their sinks so they're too numb to fight and pull each others' claws off when the steam starts to hit them.

You put water and vinegar - and some add a bottle of beer - for the liquid in the bottom of the steamer and coat each layer of crabs with a mixture of crab seasoning and salt.

It really doesn't flavor the crab meat: you just get it on your hands when you pick and eat them by hand.

Then you crank up the burner - my 1 bushel crab pot fits on my kitchen stove - and hold the top on while the crabs struggle to escape for a minute or so. Then you keep steaming until the shells turn red, about 25 minutes.  The commercial places do it with pressurized steam in about 7 minutes.

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Crabs are great and very tasty and I'm talking about the Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab, Callinectes Sapidus (Beautiful Swimmer), not that Alaska, etc. stuff.  The body meat of the Blue Crab is much more delicious and abundant than the claw meat - which is somewhat similar in taste to the so-so Alaskan Crab Legs. They're a very social thing here in Maryland. It takes time to pick and eat a crab -forget those crab hammers you see, we locals can extract every sliver of meat with a butter-knife- which provides for lots of conversation while you're eating. And it goes great with beer which helps the conversations get more interesting!

One thing that grosses people unfamiliar with crabs is watching locals scoop the "mustard" off the inside of the crab shell with a finger and eat it: it's a tasty bit of fatty, semi-liquid material that goes fine with the actual crab meat.

Steamed crabs, to me, don't measure up to steamed shrimp or lobster, but the reputations of Maryland restaurants are won or lost by how they prepare two crab dishes that are absolutely delicious and today you can get broiled or fried: Crab Cakes - today usually a ball of about 80% jumbo lump crab meat with various seasonings: a little bread, egg, and seasonings, the size of a baseball or softball compared to the flat ones of years ago, and Crab Imperial: THE supreme crab dish, made with about 80% jumbo lump crab seasoned with mayonaise, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, egg, Old Bay or other crab seasoning, and more. It is usually a little smaller than a baseball and served in the top half of the shell.

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