Crab Recipes Archives - Page 2 of 2

“Crab Burgers“

August 18, 2015January 13, 2019

We had some crabs with friends and had a few leftovers. What a crisis! So many options.

I usually have a weird hangup about combining crab-meat with cheese… it seems disrespectful or something. A few weeks ago we went to Gertrudes and they served some crab up on an English muffin with some melted cheese. Who am I to disagree with John Shields? It was pretty tasty.

Furthermore, who am I to disagree with Helen Avalynne Tawes aka Mrs. J. Millard Tawes – Crisfield native and first lady of Maryland from 1959-1967.

Until very recently, Tawes remained a big name in Maryland, from Frostburg to Princess Anne. That is slowly fading but Crisfield will surely maintain its shrines to J. Millard Tawes for years to come..

Helen Tawes cooking terrapin, ca. 1960. Maryland State Archives

Mrs. Tawes beams with pride and appreciation for the Eastern Shore in the introduction to her 1964 cookbook “My Favorite Maryland Recipes.”

She also says, in her own words:

“Since I love to cook, and, above all things, love my State’s characteristic cookery… I set about experimenting. I wanted to see if the traditional Maryland deliciousness could be preserved with modern methods… I helped [my husband] in his campaigning every way I could, but, when I had time, I worked on my own project – in my kitchen. The result was that, to my astonishment, I produced what politically experienced people have called a ‘piece of campaign literature.’
It was a cookbook, nothing more.”

Whether the book changed the course of an election I could not say, but the book stands today, in all its reprints, among the canon of Maryland cookbooks.

Mrs. Tawes and artist Stanislav Rembski with portraits of Mrs. McKeldin
and Mrs. Tawes, 1966.

Eleven years after her 1989 passing, the Baltimore Sun gushed:

Known as Lou to close friends, she studied music at the Peabody
Conservatory in Mount Vernon Place and later sang on a Salisbury radio
station. And while living in the governor’s mansion, she wasn’t the
least bit shy about playing an electric organ, which prompted the
governor to quip, “She’s got more nerve than a jackrabbit.”

While
music may have had a place in her heart, it was in her kitchen,
surrounded by black iron frying pans and a larder overflowing with the
bounty of the Chesapeake Bay country, that Tawes truly excelled. She
exulted in old-time, stick-to-the-ribs 19th-century fare while avoiding
what she called “fancy seasonings.” – Her crab cakes were renowned 7/22/2000

And so, I chose her decadent recipe for “Crab Burgers,” essentially crab salad with cheese on a burger bun. Being that she was a mid-century lady, I will forgive her use of Miracle Whip – mayonnaise worked just fine for me, however. The 1995 version of “Maryland Seafood Cookbook I” included a variation under the moniker “Crisfield Crab-Burgers”, using mayonnaise, “cubes of mild cheese” within the salad, and Parmesan on top.

crab hand

I halved this recipe to accommodate my quantity of crab-meat

Recipe:

1 Lb crab meat
.75 Cup celery
2 Tablespoon finely grated onion
2 Tablespoon green pepper
1 Cup medium-Sharp Cheddar
1 Cup mayonnaise
2 Teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 Teaspoons hot sauce
.75 Teaspoon salt
hamburger rolls

Mix all ingredients before adding crab meat, gently folding in the meat to keep lumps together. Cut hamburger rolls in half, butter lightly and toast with the buttered side up. (This forms a crisp surface so that mixture will not be absorbed in the bun.) Spread crab mixture on the bun; sprinkle with shredded cheese. Place under broiler for 3 to 5 minutes until browned and bubbly. Serve hot, immediately.

Recipe adapted from “My Favorite Maryland Recipes” by Mrs. J. Millard Tawes

Edith Dyson’s Crab Cakes

June 5, 2015June 11, 2019

I guess people do eat crabcakes in Maryland, occasionally.

I have some opinions about crabcakes but I think I should leave them out of this. I do make crabcakes on occasion, particularly for special occasions, and often in miniature form so there is enough to go around.

A pound of decent crabmeat will set you back considerably but making mini-crabcakes on crackers gives everyone a chance to enjoy some.

I tend to stick to a formula but I decided to branch out, in service to this blog.

While at Faidley’s (where I also treated myself to a coddie, a deviled egg and a coke), I mistakenly thought I had a recipe somewhere that called for claw meat. I was incorrect about this – I have some that call for some claw-meat. I used it anyway and so I may have somewhat botched these due to that and my ignorance of ideal proportions in this unfamiliar formula. I had a hard time keeping them together and they came out dry. I recommend the addition of another egg if using a pound of meat, or some mayo.

Nonetheless I did not take home any uneaten crab-cakes from the party I made these for.

The recipe came from the 1975 book “300 Years of Black Cooking in St. Mary’s County Maryland.” This book combines the elements of historical collections such as “Eat, Drink & Be Merry” with the heart of church cookbooks, homespun illustrations and all. Note the crab on the cookbook in ingredient photo.

This recipe was contributed to the book by Edith Dyson of St. James. I chose it of the three crab cake recipes in the book because of ingredients I had on hand. The sauteed onions and peppers step is a new one to me.

In 1988, Edith Dyson aka Edith Dyson Parker shared her grandfather’s story of having his farm taken in order to build a naval base in the early 1940s with Andrea Hammer for St. Mary’s County Documentation Project. Her grandfather, John Dyson, who was born enslaved, was heartbroken at the loss of his land, known as Fordtown. In her pained recollections she relays the connection her grandparents had to the land and the bounty it provided for the family – fish and poultry, fruit trees and melons.

John Dyson picking pears outside of his home on Cedar Point. Source: LOC./SlackWater Center

The SlackWater Center at St. Mary’s College of Maryland has created some amazing resources I came across in researching this post. Viewing these photos taken by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration as this family became landowners, and knowing the outcome is sobering.

“Louise Dyson sits at a table with her carefully canned vegetables in the late summer heat.” LOC, John Vachon

“[In St. Mary’s County,] my grandfather worked the water. There were hotels and families that bought fish from him. These fish were caught on a hook and line; they were not caught on rod and reels. In St. Mary’s, they had everything. There was nothing they didn’t have.

I came home [to New Jersey] from New York after the government had started breaking up land and tearing up everybody’s place. My grandfather was sitting on the porch and I’ll never forget it: he was playing his accordion, he was playing “Look Down that Lonesome Road.” And that is a very sad song. I said, “Grandfather, don’t play that song, don’t play that song. You know, play something, say something, let’s dance it off.”

But there was no pleasure in him, everything was gone. There was nothing you could bring up to him that wouldn’t bring back St. Mary’s County. And we never, we never wanted to remind him of St. Mary’s County.

…The part that gets to me is all the older people, the black people in St. Mary’s County that were around in Fordtown, those are the ones that I really knew, the ones around Fordtown. They don’t have a damn thing to show where they can say, I bought, my mother, my father, my grandfather bought this out of the money they got for their home that the government took. Because they didn’t get enough to buy anything, you see.

The government killed my grandmother and grandfather when they took that land from them, they did.” – Edith Dyson Parker

St. Mary’s county has a rich African-American history shared in cookbooks like “300 Years of Black Cooking in St. Mary’s County”, in the narratives of Edith and her neighbors, and actively and passionately being preserved to this day by groups like the St. Mary’s County Black History Coalition. From stuffed ham to crab-cakes, it is woven into the culinary fiber of Maryland.

Recipe:

finely chopped onion
pepper, green
oil, peanut
mustard, prepared
1 egg
½ cup mayonnaise or an additional egg
cracker meal
1 lb crab meat
breadcrumbs
Worcestershire sauce
salt
pepper, cayenne
black pepper
seafood seasoning

Use the above ingredients according to your tastes and needs. Saute the onion, green pepper, red pepper, salt, and seafood seasoning in oil. Do not brown. Beat the egg(s) and/or mayonnaise. Add the sauteed ingredients, worcestershire, salt, pepper and mustard. Gently fold in breadcrumbs and crabmeat to mix. Make into cakes or patties. Roll in cracker meal and fry in vegetable or peanut oil until browned.

Edith Dyson Parker’s grandparents, John and Louise Dyson, outside their home at Cedar Point. Mr. Dyson, nearly 80 when this image was taken, was born a slave. 1940, Library of Congress.”Takings” Slackwater Center

Crab Flake Maryland, Charles Bitterli, Hotel Emerson

March 22, 2015January 13, 2019

I had some illustrious company and wanted to serve a classy meal. Where better to take cues from than the illustrious Hotel Emerson.

Hotel Emerson by Aubrey Bodine @ MD Historical Society

The hotel was the brainchild of Capt. Isaac Emerson, the man behind Bromo-Seltzer and its parent company, the Emerson Drug Co…the 220-foot-high, 17-story building at the corner of Baltimore and Calvert streets.. opened its doors a quick 20 months later….

And long before the current fashion for local ingredients, the Chesapeake Room offered a traditional Maryland-themed menu made from products raised on Capt. Emerson’s Green Spring Valley estate, Brooklandwood (now the home of St. Paul School for Boys). The hotel’s milk and cream came from Brooklandwood’s herd of Guernsey and Jersey cows, and the estate also produced chicken and eggs, as well as lettuces, tomatoes and other vegetables. The hotel even bottled its own water from a spring near Brooklandwood. – Mary Zajac

Please read the article for more on how the Emerson’s history is both illustrious and horrific.

In its later years, the Emerson was known for its “Hawaiian Room,” a seemingly immersive tiki bar. A lot of ephemera has been collected on this facebook page.

Drink menu from the Emerson’s Hawaiian Room.

Because our city’s self-loathing dates back further than I care to think about, the building was razed in 1971. There is a great web 1.0 site showing many of our lost hotels, as well as some still standing, at kilduffs.com.

This recipe was provided to Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland by “Chef de Cuisine” Charles Bitterli. According to a trade publication called “The Alarm Clock”:

Mr Charles Bitterli the chef of The Emerson Hotel Baltimore Maryland was born in Switzerland. The years since 1904 have been a steady advance in his chosen profession. The first five years were spent in Swiss hotels and famous eating houses one year was spent in Paris at the Regina Hotel. ln order to gain the experience necessary for the goal in view Mr Bitterli was associated with the Amstel Hotel, Amsterdam; Royal Pavilion, Folkstone, England; Hotel dos Estrangeiros Rio de Janiero and The Exhibition Restaurant in Berne.

Mr. Bitterli arrived in New York City in 1915 and began his duties at the Hotel Astor. Some of the other well known houses with which he was later affiliated were Sherman Hotel, Chicago; Adolphus Hotel, Dallas, Texas; Hammel’s Restaurant, Miller’s Cafeteria, Motor Square Hotel and Chamber of Commerce all in Pittsburgh. Chef Bitterli shouldered his new responsibilities at the Emerson Hotel in September of this year and is well liked not only for the good food that leaves his department but also for his optimism and his sense of humor.

Bitterli in “The Alarm Clock,” “published monthly in the interests of the staff of Horwath and Horwath”

Searching google and facebook turns up possible relatives of Bitterli but I was unable to successfully contact anyone for more information.

This recipe from Bitterli appears on a New York Post page alongside diet and health tips from celebrities such as Dorthea Dix.

Crab being woefully out of season, I used this pricey and possibly shady meat from Garland Fulcher Seafood of North Carolina. I picked many shell bits from it. Not a huge deal but all in all the price, unfamiliar source and quality should serve as a cautionary tale to mind the seasons.

I made the mistake of using salted butter AND using the generous recommended quantity of a half ounce of salt so of course that was a disservice to the crab meat I’d paid so dearly for.

This method of serving something in a cream sauce, often in a chafing dish, was very common of hotels and railroads at the time and it of course always turns out a tasty salty creamy indulgence, apparently to the delight of travelers. I served it over asparagus on a crepe to our guests. Much water was consumed. I used the leftovers to make a less-salty cream of crab soup later.

1 Lb lump crab flake
1 Pint milk, scalded
.5 Pint cream
.25 Lb unsalted butter
.25 oz salt
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 glass sherry
2 Tablespoons flour
toast

Melt half the butter in saucepan, add the flour and make the cream sauce with the heated milk, set aside to keep it hot. Heat the rest of the butter in a saucepan, add the crab meat and fry a little, trying not to break up the lumps. Add salt, pepper, cream sauce and cream. Let boil for two of three minutes, then add the sherry and mix well. Make sure that it doesn’t boil. Serve very hot in chafing dish with toast.