Study: 38% Of Crab Cakes Tested At Maryland, DC Restaurants Don’t Contain Local Crab Listed On Menus

[Panich52]

Study: 38% Of Crab Cakes Tested At Maryland, D.C. Restaurants Don’t Contain The Local Crab Listed On Menus –

Consumerist
http://consumerist.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=906cd19654b78a79f4f5210b6&id=e440958c65&e=1aaac86fc1

[noella17]

1. There is also some report about scamming olive oil.

Putting in vegetable oil (cheap) in place of the real deal.

[Warpy]

2. Color me unsurprised.

If it wasn't going into crab cakes, people would really notice the difference between fresh Chesapeake crab and frozen crab from elsewhere. However, the real thing can be prohibitively expensive when fishing has been bad and some places are undoubtedly cutting corners by buying prefab frozen crab cakes instead of hiring staff to make them.

[pinboy3niner]

3. Exactly

With crab counts down and prices high, I'd be surprised to find any Chesapeake Bay blues in crab cakes. Better to grab a bunch of friends and go to a local crab house and order whole blues by the dozens, served with vinegar, crab spice and clarified butter (but call ahead to reserve your crabs). Yum!

[Warpy]

6. Best backyard parries when I was a kid in DC

were centered around a couple of coolers full of fresh boiled crabs, turned out onto newspaper and served with cayenne laced melted butter and lots of napkins. Parents got beer and we got sweet tea and a great time was had by all.

Crab cakes are kind of a waste for exquisitely fresh boiled crab. If I'm going to do those, I'll use frozen or fake, the taste is the same.

[Aerows]

10. Nothing beats fresh boiled crab

I went with some friends to Grand Isle, and we caught traps full of them. I probably ate 6 or 7 of them by myself (all of it, minus the shells and the yellow icky stuff).

I love snow crab and King crab, too. I'm not much of a fan of Dungeness. Large stone crab claws, however ... don't leave me alone with them if you are planning on having any of them!

[pinboy3niner]

12. I'm with you

Crab cakes can be good, but there's nothing like the unadulterated real thing, steamed in the shell.

I discovered blues as an adult when I lived in Northern Virginia and visited the best crab house around. It was in an old wooden bungalo on Lee Highway in Arlington until it moved to a modern strip mall building near Fairfax Circle. Still great crab, but without the charm of the old bungalo.

They had long tables with a roll of brown paper affixed to the wall at the end, to be dispensed for each new group of diners for their tablecloth.

The crabs were boiled with Old Bay seasoning, which some people mistake for crab spice. But the real crab spice uses Old Bay as just one of many ingredients, and cayenne is a key one. The spice is served on the side with the crab.

Crabs were ordered by the dozen, served on cafeteria trays. The large ones cost more, but were worth it for more meat for less work. They came with vinegar and crab spice on the side, with butter optional for a nominal extra charge.

A friend swears that some chemical(s) in the crab produces a high, and I agree with him. Though he later realized he'd had a couple more beers than he thought the night he came to that realization.

Some are put off by the little wood hammer and knife, but even a beginner like me became an expert at using them in no time.

A bunch of friends and I made it a regular thing to go as a group, and after the crab house moved one friend arrived very late one night because sho got lost finding the new location. So we bought a crab house shirt and then printed a map on the back for her as a gift.

In CA I don't have blue crab now, but I approximate with the supermarket faux product of 'Krab' and a spice recipe I found that's pretty close to the crab house concoction. Whenever I visit the D.C. area I make a point of hitting the crab house with my friends.

[Aerows]

4. King Crab Legs

don't come caught out of the Gulf of Mexico, but that doesn't mean I'm not thawing out a pound of the suckers as we speak with the intention of devouring them after a good steaming.

We have great blue crab down here, and I've even caught them and boiled them myself. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop eating any and all crab that comes my way . These were given to me by someone that cannot eat seafood, and I most certainly can, and this is my Easter treat!

[pinboy3niner]

5. Long ago I did an internship with a Dem Rep who was on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries subcom.

When the industry held a reception for the legislators, they flew in fresh seafood from all over, including King Crab from Alaska. At the end, the pros took pity on a poor college student intern and loaded me down with bags and bags of the stuff to take home.

I ate like a KING for the next couple of weeks. Good times!

[Aerows]

8. It's like the sweetness of a Lobster claw

with the texture of Snow crab. I don't like Lobster tails - too chewy, but these are JUST RIGHT .

[DeSwiss]

7. In Capitalism nothing has to be what it appears to be.......

...as long as it makes a profit, all's forgiven.

- They'll be lucky if it's even from the sea......

K&R

[Aerows]

9. Catch, Boil and shell your own

or get them frozen and steam/shell them yourself. Then you know exactly what you are getting because you know it came out of a crab.

[obxhead]

11. Or get them from a local doing the fishing for you.

Many people support their families by fishing and selling their goods in local markets or roadside stands. In many cases they handle their products in a much safer manner than the big chains because every lost crab is a dinner missed.

[Aerows]

13. Yep, do that too!

Nothing beats fresh crab. A good crawfish boil with about 50 lbs. is good with potatoes, lemon and Zatarains, but a big ol' pot of fresh crabs boiled? Nothing better!

Noticed your OBX logo. You folks in North Carolina get some heavenly treasures from the sea!

[obxhead]

14. sadly, I'm no longer close.

SW FL now. But the obx was my home away from home (twice a month when possible) for a couple of decades.

[Aerows]

16. Don't knock SW Florida

I lived in St. Pete/Clearwater for several years.

You could get some phenomenal deals on fresh caught seafood!

[pinboy3niner]

15. When I lived in Northern Virginia a NoLA shrimper came up and bought a fish market there

The guy had a lovely cajun surname--Cheramie. And he knew where to get the BEST seafood.

He offered gourmet cooking classes at his store, teaming with a gourmand who was an analyst at CIA HQ there. That was in the '80s

I loved the classes and still do the recipes. Mo eventually sold the store and returned to the shrimping business with his family. Considering later developments, I worry about him and hope he is doing well despite everything...

[Aerows]

17. I had some friends from Breaux Bridge, LA.

Her mom sent her a care package of a 3 gal. pot of seafood gumbo. Huge crab claws unshelled floating in it, oysters, shrimp, crawfish and all sorts of heavenly unidentified goodness in there.

To this day, I have NEVER had better seafood gumbo than Mama Landry's. I've gotten close with celery, onion, garlic and some other things added to the pot, but I swear, that woman (who spoke Cajun French as a child as most in that area did) was the gumbo whisperer.

[pinboy3niner]

18. I'm usually not a fan of mixed seafood dishes

That New England one they do never did much for me.

But my cajun seafood market-owner friend taught me a couple of dishes that were gourmet 5-star winners in my book. One was Seafood Quenelles using a Cuisinart mixer to combine the ingredients (though on second thought, that one may have been a Cuisinart recipe).

The other was a New Orleans bouillabaise that was superb. In the mid-'80s it cost me about $85 to make about 2 gallons, following the recipe exactly. Though you could probably substitute for expensive things like Grouper and do it cheaper. That dish would knock your socks off!

[Aerows]

19. Oh she wasn't a "Landry" of Landry's seafood

though probably related in some way, somewhere around there. She was just my friend's mom and my friend's dad worked for some oil refinery around there.

The gumbo she made was easily $100 bucks even then for the 3 gallons she sent. They don't spare a dime when making a huge pot of gumbo!