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
