The Dungeness and I

I have a love affair with crab legs.  Crab legs to eat, that is.  This came about when I was dating my former husband.  We were in a nice restaurant that served king crab and escargot--neither of which I had ever had--and since we were experimenting with new dishes, I had both.  The escargot did nothing for me.  The crab legs, however, once I got the hang of how to get the meat out of the shell, were a real treat.

Unfortunately, king crab is horribly expensive, and since I live in the Midwest where seafood isn't exactly fresh, I came to love snow crab--not nearly as meaty but every bit as good.  Still expensive, however!

So there I was in Seattle, Washington, where seafood is part of the culture, and I wanted crab legs.  I should probably point out here that my daughter won't touch anything that comes out of the sea or a seafood can, but she does appreciate my love of crab legs...so she did a bunch of research.

What did her research tell us?  All of the locals swear by dungeness crab.  Catch your own.  Cook your own.  Clean your own.  Piece o' cake, right?  Or buy them live at a local market and dispatch them by cooking them live, but first poke a screwdriver into a couple of places in their bodies so they won't shed their claws during live cooking.  (I'm sorry.  It gets ugly.)  After they're cooked, remove their hard shell cover, then the gills and their mouth parts and their guts--if you can recognize all of those--and enjoy!  It didn't take me long to figure out that I'd rather pay the high prices for dungeness in a restaurant than attempt it at home.  (If I were a local and practiced in this, it would have been no problem.  But I'm not.  And neither is my daughter.)

Meg located a fairly local sports bar that serves all-you-can-eat dungeness crab for a reasonable price on Mondays.   We decided we'd do that.  Minors are not allowed in the place, so we were going to have to leave the kiddos behind with some kind of other food.  On Sunday, however, we went to Pike Place Market and found a little French restaurant near the waterfront, so we went in for lunch.

This place was typically French.  Our table was tiny.  So was the menu.  Wine or water were the only drink choices...and the water was served without ice.  Since they served dungeness crab, Meg insisted that I order it.  I could have a half-crab for $25, or a whole one for $50.  Thinking Denis might like to try it, I was urged to get the whole crab.  I did.  (There were only four of us a la table, since Ryan had chosen to stay home.)  Meg ordered a bowl of French onion soup, with cheese.  Denis ordered some kind of spicy beef over noodles.  Robin ordered a bowl of oyster stew, thinking it would be like clam chowder, which she loves.  I ordered dungeness.

My first shock was that the dungeness was served cold.  There was melted butter on the side (which wasn't warm) and some sort of dill tartar sauce which was actually pretty good.  Meg ate her soup. Denis choked down his spicy hot dish.  Robin took one taste of her oyster stew and decided to eat my dungeness!  I tried to teach her how to get the meat out of the legs, etc.  She liked it!  It was good; however, it certainly wasn't worth $50--especially cold!!

There were no "sides" served with these meals.  Only bread.  In order not to waste food, I took Robin's relatively-untouched oyster stew and took a sip.  It was awful!!  So then Denis took a turn.  He had an even worse reaction.  When the stew went back at the end of the meal, the sweet little waitress asked, "Was it too rich?"  Uh...no.  Honestly, it had no saving grace!!!!

Thus endeth my relationship with dungeness crab.  Yesterday, here in good ol' Plainfield, IN, I got a craving for crab.  After fighting with myself for hours, I drove to Meijer and bought three frozen king crab legs...then could hardly eat them all.  I had to use pliers to crack into the legs.  I'm happy for now.

By the end of the day, we decided to give up the sports bar thing for Monday, since "we" had already had dungeness.

But the funniest thing, I think, is the question--and Robin voiced it as we ate in the French restaurant--is, "What human in ancient culture took a look at these creatures and thought they'd be good to eat??"

Excellent question!