re: "threw the catch in a "crab box" (a slatted box)."
As the week went on, we began to understand why we saw people crabbing with a bushel basket with spaces between the slats.
Not only was a bushel the daily limit per person, it also must be a good way to transport them.
re: "threw the catch in a "crab box" (a slatted box)."
As the week went on, we began to understand why we saw people crabbing with a bushel basket with spaces between the slats.
Not only was a bushel the daily limit per person, it also must be a good way to transport them.
============
A closer look might've revealed that they were putting wet seaweed in between layers of crabs. Evaporation...cooling. That sorta thing.
Years ago the bride and me would snorkel for bay scallops in N. Florida. The daily limit was one gallon of scallops. We took a milk jug for the gallon measurement.
As the sun went down, we shucked the scallops, filled the jug and left the shells (except pretty ones) in the Bay.
Back then I bought oysters off the dock (14 dozen) in a burlap bag.
Yes, your crabs used up the O2 in the water and suffocated. That is the ones who were submerged in water. Some stayed alive by frothing air over their gills.
Kill them live and clean them before transporting on ice. An ice pick through them at the top point towards the eyes of the triangular under flange will kill them. The males have a skinny flange, the females a delta shaped flange. Or just get good at it and rip their top shell off and wash out all the inedible crap.
If you buy them live, put them in highly salted water for a hour so they flush themselves out, then rinse, clean and cook.
Not good to have crabs at room temperature unless they are in water that will keep them alive, and once they're dead, clean and ice immediately.
Killing while live is best.
Steve
Heart surgery pending? Read up and prepare. Learn how to care for a friend.
If it had been "Next day" I wouldn't have eaten them either! It was no more than a couple of hours since they were loaded - alive - into the van before I opened the cooler back at the condo, so I wasn't too worried.
The other thing that happened that night was that I grabbed all the pots I could find in the rented condo, ending up with 4 pots (one for each burner).
One pot held 3 crabs, 1 held 2, the other 2 held 1 each. As you can imagine, we were eating pretty slowly since I could only cook them in batches of 7 or so. It's a good thing it takes time to crack them open and eat!
Wouldn't you know it - the next day I found a huge crab steaming pot still in it's box, inside a bag, in the corner of the pantry.
reply: Yuck, you cooked them whole? Another good point to cleaning them first is that they take up a whole lot less space.
Steve
Heart surgery pending? Read up and prepare. Learn how to care for a friend.
"DerbyDad03" wrote
As the week went on, we began to understand why we saw people crabbing with a bushel basket with spaces between the slats.
Not only was a bushel the daily limit per person, it also must be a good way to transport them.
reply: It helps when they are stacked in the hold with crushed ice in between. Helps it melt off, drain off, and cool faster and more evenly.
Steve
(snip)
Uh, how can you kill then while they are anything BUT live?
(Yeah, I know what you meant- but somebody had to say it....)
Your detailed description is a good example of why I only eat seafood or
4-legged food or flying food if somebody else kills/cleans it. I gross out REAL easily. Not saying it is wrong, mind you, just that I can't do it. The world is probably a safer place because I am squeamish.
I'm not that squeamish, but the sight of people eating crabs with the guts all over the place and saying "YUMMY!" turns my stomach. The thought of all that goo that is inside a crab cooking throughout the meat and throughout the crab is more than I can bear.
I single-handedly changed several Cajun families practice by serving them crabs that were cleaned before cooking.
Steve
Not really.
nb
If you get up in Maryland you will find most of the people eat damn near everything but the devil fingers in a crab and they are always cooked whole and live. Most people won't cook a dead crab. They use the "mustard" like a dipping sauce.
-snip-
The tomalley is my favorite part of crabs and lobsters. Next is the claws-- you can have the lobster tail and crab white meat.
They shoulda been eating crawfish, anyways.
Jim
re: "Most people won't cook a dead crab"
...and that is the normal recommendation for reasons mentioned earlier in this thread i.e. bacteria.
However, since I knew the crabs couldn't have died more that a couple of hours earlier - probably less since a few were still alive (some sluggish, some still feisty) I felt somewhat comfortable cooking them.
I'll admit to cooking them a few minutes longer than suggested just to be safe.
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