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Wooden Mallets and Hungry Fen |
Michael Nelson |
On
Thursday evening of Bucconeer, 499 of my closest friends (especially that rowdy
gang from New Jersey wearing those "Yucky the Crab" t-shirts) and I are going to
gather at Baltimore’s Museum of Industry for an honest-to-ghod Maryland Crab Feast.
Armed only with wooden mallets and our fannish appetites, we shall lay waste to mounds of
steamed blue crabs, fried chicken, microbrewed beer, and other Maryland-style goodies.
I asked myself, "So, what is a Maryland crab feast?" I started at the Maryland Office of Tourism Development’s website at www.mdisfun.org and made my way to the "Crabbing – All About Blue Crabs" website at www.clark.net/pub/crabbing.
There, I read about Callinectes sapidus, the "beautiful swimmer". You see, the blue crab’s flattened hind legs work like paddles to allow them to peacefully glide above the ocean’s bottom. Then I learned how to steam to death, dismember, and devour the little buggers.
A true Maryland crab feast is not a spectator’s sport. Steamed blue crabs, heavily spiced with seafood seasonings, are piled on newspaper-covered tables. Rolls of paper towels serve as napkins and open trash cans stand by to catch the discarded shells and offal. Participants must dive in with both hands and trusty crab mallet.
Crab mothers tell their children horror stories about the sound of hundreds of humans cracking open and gobbling tender young crab flesh. The Crabbing website provides full graphic details on the blunt art of blue crab eating and Ann Steele, our Crabinator, has promised instructions at the feast.
The Crab Feast is limited to 500 people. See Ann’s article in
Progress Report Three for details. [Ann informs us that food will be served
buffet-style up until 9:30 p.m. – Ed.] A reservation form was included
with Broadside Five. Tickets are $30 each and should be purchased soon. Contact Ann
Steele at Bucconeer’s postal address, crab.feast@bucconeer.worldcon.org, or +1-410-727-4808, extension 102.
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