We lived in Northern Virginia for a few years while Carrie went to grad school and shortly after arriving realized that no one was really from the DC area. It seemed like everyone was a transplant from another part of the country or another part of the world. For the general population in the DC area this seemed to be true and for Carrie’s grad school classmates and their families this was almost completely the case.
The really great thing about this diversity was that everyone brought their own perspectives and backgrounds and even better, everyone brought their own food culture. The thing I miss the most about the DC metro area is all of the great ethnic restaurants. Virtually anything you could imagine was a car or METRO ride away and we tried to take advantage of it as much as our grad school budget would allow.
The world cuisine that we were able to experience in DC was remarkable, but even among our grad school friends, our dinner parties became a place to share our own regional American food cultures. If our friends hadn’t shared their own food cultures with us, we would never have been introduced to Cincinnati Chili, had a mint julep at a real Kentucky Derby Party, or experienced a low country boil.
Now admittedly, our dear friend Stephen is not from the low country, if I remember correctly he grew up mostly in central Georgia and in Mississippi and now resides in Memphis, but he is our guru when it comes to southern food ways and has introduced us to many wonderful southern delights. Stephen and his wife Katherine are not known to do anything half way and their dinner parties in grad school are fondly remember for not only having been great times shared with great friends, but some fairly elaborate undertakings with fantastic meals.
One of the most memorable dinner parties was a low country boil they hosted for about a dozen guests. An outdoor affair, they actually moved their dining table into the courtyard outside their townhouse and we enjoyed a lovely summer evening by candlelight. I had never heard of a low country boil before that evening, but was delighted to learn that it involved dumping a steaming pot of shrimp, corn, sausage and potatoes directly onto a newspaper covered table, adding some crusty bread on the side and having-at with nothing more than your hands and maybe a knife.
Ever since that first low country boil we’ve been hooked and even tried a few on a small scale at home. It’s really a great way to have a casual, leisurely, delicious meal shared with family and friends and it’s always reminded me of a similar pleasure -- picking blue claw crabs on the Jersey shore. Growing up, my family spent every summer’s vacation “down the shore” and the past time of picking crabs at the picnic table on a hot summer’s day is a cherished memory. So, during a recent vacation spent with my family we decided to marry the two traditions and have a low country Jersey-style boil!
First to source the crabs – you got to have them in order to eat them and the cheapest way to get them by far is to catch them yourself. We started out first thing in the morning digging through the fridge for anything to stick in the crab trap as bait because I failed to plan ahead and actually go to the bait store. I had little faith that we’d get ourselves enough crabs for a boil but figured maybe we’d get a few to add to the pot. Of course I ended up heading out later to the fish market to buy a dozen crabs. In the end we actually got one OK sized crab from the trap and were able to steam up a baker’s dozen.
I rounded out the ingredient list at the grocery store with fresh Jersey corn, kielbasa, small red potatoes and shrimp, oh and let’s not forget the Old Bay! As this was the Jersey shore, the rental house came equipped with a giant pot that fit nicely on the side burner of the gas grill for steaming crabs. Unfortunately it was missing a perforated insert for straining out the contents of the boil so I had to remember to pick up a bamboo spider at the grocery store to use along with tongs to retrieve everything from the pot -- a bit of a hassle, but we survived.
The order of operations dictates that the things that take the longest to cook go in first and so on. This meant that the potatoes were first in the pool followed by the corn and kielbasa about seven minutes later, then the crabs for few minutes and finally the shrimp. The crabs ended up taking longer to steam than expected, so the potatoes were a little worse for wear, but let’s be honest, no one was interested in them anyway, they were obligatory at best.
Once served everything was great. A few small bumps in the road didn’t lessen the enjoyment at all –- when the sun went down we had to move everything inside due to mosquitoes the size of humming birds plus the adults spent most of their meal picking crabs for the kids. But the food was excellent –- succulent crab and shrimp married nicely with vinegar and spice infused boil as did the corn, sausage and potatoes. Washed down with some Magic Hat Wacko and Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat, it was a great meal and a great union of two fantastic regional traditions.
Posts
