Virginia is for Eaters

April 18, 2007

From my post at KQED's Bay Area Bites:

"I'm having a really hard time writing about food this week. Frankly, I've lost my appetite. All my favorite foods turn to ashes in my mouth, and anything that does pass my gullet curdles with each additional reporting on the Virginia Tech massacre. With over thirty dead, it's the deadliest shooting rampage in America, and I can't, I won't, ignore it....

My husband, who grew up in Virginia, has fond memories of crab feasts where he worked hard with mallet and blunt knife to scrape out every last scrap of pure white meat from Old Bay-drenched shells. As he tells it, your hands and fingers sustain tiny cuts from hungrily slaving over the sharp shells, and the sting you get from the spicy seasoning working its way into your tender skin is a sweet and necessary pain, as much a part of the blue crab experience as the crab itself.

I've never been able to whack my own pile of blue crabs in either Maryland or Virginia, but I was able to enjoy these Beautiful Swimmers in another luxurious way."

Read more about the foods of Virginia.