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    Free State Oyster Omelet

    This recipe comes from a popular cookbook produced by the Maryland Seafood Marketing Authority. First produced in 1974, the book was developed with the aid of “state seafood home economist” Beverly Butler in order to “expand the role of the Chesapeake Bay seafood industry as a major contributor to the state’s economy.” At the time,…

  • Deviled Crab

    Crab-cakes may be king now, but it wasn’t always so. From the 1800′s right on up through the 1950′s, if you wanted to impress some guests, you’d serve them crab meat picked from the crab, mixed with an assortment of seasonings, packed back into the crab shell with some breadcrumbs on top and baked until…

  • White Clam Sauce

    Outside of the German peach cake, or the Indian chutney that made its way into Mrs. B.C. Howard’s recipe collection, non-English and African influences aren’t always obvious in the recipes I work from. A lot of cooking traditions were passed down orally in immigrant communities, or else handwritten recipe manuscripts of everyday citizens didn’t make…

  • Crab Custard

    After all of that cookbook genealogy last week I need a little rest so here’s a crab recipe from “My Favorite Maryland Recipes.” Many people who may not be familiar with the Tawes name were made so recently when Maryland’s current governor elected to attend the J. Millard Tawes Crab & Clam Bake instead of the Republican Convention….

  • Old Bay Pizza

    Update (2023): The recipe in this post was apparently invented by a woman named Connee Rauser Sheckler, who won a contest with it. It appeared in the “Cooking with Old Bay” cookbook under the name she gave it, “Old Bay Bianca Pizza.” I think I should make this dish again and share a few more…