I was raised on the Chesapeake Bay with my 5 brothers and sisters. Every weekend we would head out down to the Bay with chicken, string, net and a bucket for crabbing. We spent hours catching live blue crabs and would rush home where our Mom was waiting to clean and cook them. However, it was not till I was older and moved to Maryland that I realized we cooked our crabs differently than most people.
As we got older it always seemed that whenever our family would get together during the summer time we could not go without having a crab feast. No matter what the occasion, when the "Ross" family gets together we always get a bushel or two of crabs and the cleaning and cooking process would begin.
We are such die hard crab eaters that when our precious Mom passed away of Cancer in the summer of 2006 instead of hiring a caterer we decided to throw a huge crab feast for everyone that came into town and celebrate the life of our hero... Our Mom! We knew she was smiling down on us from heaven because we were doing exactly what she would have wanted us to do.
The Cleaning Process:
Instead of steaming the blue crabs with shells on and cleaning them while eating we would place the live crabs in hot water in order to put them to sleep. Once they were not trying to bite you we would rip their shells off, remove the lungs then cook them in a special blend of seasoning that soaked into the meat as it was cooking. Since the grandsons are older now they pitch in and help Uncle Ben clean all the crabs and get them ready for the cooking process. The Cooking Process:
There are only a few of the family members that know how to cook the crabs to perfection and I just happen to be one of them! :-) Believe it or not there really is a science to cooking these bad boys. You under cook them and you could get sick... You over cook them and you have mushy crabs! I've done both! With some oil, beer, fresh chopped garlic and the "special" seasoning along with just the right cooking time you too can have the best blue crabs you have ever tasted. It seems that over the years our family has invited our friends to enjoy in our crab feast and every year we get more and more people asking for the recipe and the directions in making these crabs. Some have said they never want to go back to eating the crabs with the shells on again.
