Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Fressers
This evening, I realized I’ve never told you the soft shell crab story. Oh, I’ve hinted at it on occasion, but I’ve never really put this one out there in all its gory detail.
In ’92 or ’93, Pre-Jake Years in any case, Karen and I flew out to New Orleans to attend our friend Linus’s wedding. Have I ever mentioned how much I love New Orleans? It still pisses me off that the government didn’t want my help during Katrina. What, don’t flood victims have ear problems? I’ll bet they had some of the worst otitis externa (swimmer’s ear) imaginable. But I digress.
New Orleans is the kind of place where you have to work hard to find bad food. You have to go to Jack in the Box, or Denny’s, or you have to buy Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks at the local grocery store. But step into any restaurant, and the seafood is heavenly.
For example: en route from the airport to our hotel, we chose a restaurant at random, an inconspicuous roadside diner, and had some of the best boiled shrimp of our lives.
One evening, Karen and I went to some upscale restaurant recommended in Zagat. It was a converted church, I remember that much. Anyway, we saw soft shell crab on the appetizer menu and ordered one.
One.
The waiter said, “You REALIZE there’s only ONE crab on that appetizer,” which seemed awfully chintzy. One crab — for whatever they were asking, maybe eight or nine dollars. We were thinking of, you know, soft shell crab, like that little fellow up above, perhaps four or five inches across. And the restaurant couldn’t even be bothered to put two on the appetizer? Okay, fine, we asked for two orders. Then we ordered two main courses as well.
Meanwhile, at the table next to us, this older couple in their 50s or 60s were putting down highballs and scarfing up the bread and butter.
Anyway.
So the waiter brings out our soft shell crabs — and these mothers are MONSTERS, easily a foot across, and each one is literally wading in a pool of clarified butter. They were delicious. Needless to say, we were full after the appetizer, and could only pick at our entrees and take leftovers back to the hotel. We were pissed because we wanted to sample their desserts, but couldn’t justify taking back even more uneaten food to the hotel.
Meanwhile, at the table next to us, the older couple has also ordered one soft shell crab apiece. We watched in horror as they finished their crabs, mopped up all the clarified butter with bread from their bread bowl, ordered and drank their second and third round of high balls, polished off their entrees, ordered and ate their desserts, and had room left for a cup of coffee.
They weren’t even all that fat, those two.
Is there a moral to this story, aside from the obvious one that we eat like birds? (Yes, I know that saying is inaccurate. Birds eat quite a lot on a per-weight basis. But you know what I mean. And besides, Karen eats like a sparrow, I eat like a turkey vulture.) I’m not sure. Perhaps something to do with the amazing metabolic variation among human beings. Or a testament to our revolting culture of consumption.
Or proof that New Orleans food rocks, and if we had been more bold we would have finished our entrees, had dessert, and dealt with the consequences later.
D.
Speaking of which, (otitis externa and digressions) I guess public swimming pool users are a fabulous source of customers for a man in the ear and throat infection business….
And can soft-foam-expanding hearing protector earplugs be safely used in swimming pools as long as you don’t dive or swim too deep?
I’ve never been to New Orleans or had soft-shelled crab. But then I’m not keen on lobster, if that’s similar.
Birds eat quite a lot on a per-weight basis
I seem to remember the following exchange in a Joe Haldeman novel (Buying Time, maybe):
He: “You still eat like a bird?”
She: “Yeah, half my weight in bugs each day.”
I noticed that about New Orleans, too: it is hard to get a bad meal there. And good there is such a good good, too.
Having been to New Orleans, I agree with you about their food. Never had a soft shell crab though. The only thing I didn’t like were the benets (don’t want to look up the spelling, but you know what I mean, the powdered sugar donut thingy); to me, pretty mediocre.
To the best of my knowledge, I’ve really only had soft-shell crab fried, in po’ boys and sushi. Mmmm, spider rolls…
Kinda, sorta, but not really… And there are lots of differences between the meat of different kinds of crabs, too.
(Are you talking spiny lobster, or North Atlantic lobster? Coz’ Homarus americanus is much sweeter than the spiny lobster.)
microsoar: swimming pools aren’t the usual culprits. Rivers and lakes = “bad water” (untreated). Since pool water is chlorinated, it’s less likely to cause a swimmer’s ear than lake or river water.
I recommend a cotton/petroleum jelly ear plug. You have to really rub the petroleum jelly into the cotton, otherwise it’s a greasy mess. And don’t make it too small or you’ll give yourself an ear foreign body.
I don’t think soft shell crab tastes anything like “regular” crab, nor is it remotely like lobster. That’s because the dominant flavor comes from the shell itself. The closest thing I can compare it to is shrimp in the shell which has been fried to such a crisp that the shells are edible. If you’ve never tried that, you ought to. It’s delicious. Trouble is, if it’s not sufficiently fried, the shells are inedible. Kinda have to try it and see.
Errr… Southern Rock Lobster (Jasus edwardsii) is all I’ve tried.
And yabbies.
I’ve had rock lobster from the Mediterranean and Caribbean, and I don’t think either is as good as Atlantic lobster. Admittedly, this might have something to do with the fact that when I was growing up, we would go and buy lobster right off the boats at least once a summer. Mmmmm. Lobster.
Come to think of it, we also had some kind of freshwater lobster/crayfish while we were in Kerala, India… That was pretty close in taste and texture to Atlantic lobster. And nothing like crab in the slightest, soft shell or otherwise.