Crabs, Soft

As a small child growing up summers on Gwynn's Island, I spent a lot of days in and around the Rivershore. Rivershore is the body of water that you see when you drive around the shore on Gwynn's Island, it really is Hills Bay, but it's the shallow part where we played.

On low tide Moma with dipping net in hand, her basket float, which consisted of a crab basket sitting inside an inner tube and I would hit Rivershore to go soft crabbing. If we were lucky my Aunt Christene and sometimes her grand kids were with us. We would park our car either on the side of the road or in a friends yard, put on our canvas Keds, no laces and hit the shallow warm water. Starting at one end of the Island and ending almost to Cherry Point, we'd wade through the water looking for crabs. At that time there was lots of sea grass plots that the little critters would be hiding in. Actually if they were real soft, they couldn't move. They became prey for stingrays, gulls, herons and us!!! With net in hand we'd maneuver through the grass scooping up the soft crustaceans and putting them in our basket. The basket sat low enough in the water for water to flow through it and keep the crabs cool and alive. My cousins and I would take this time to practice our swimming, behind them of course, couldn't disturb the water. Invariably one of us would get bitten by a hard crab, or stung by a stinging nettle. In places the grass was real high there was no way around it except to walk through and I hated that. In my mind I could see and feel every bad thing the river had to offer.

Slowly we would walk for what seemed like miles and probably was. Looking into that clear low water everything ever left overboard was visible. Of course we were spurred on by the tale of Cornwallis' well where all his belongings were thrown before the capture at Yorktown. A tale is true, but we listened carefully every time trying to pick out the right spot it might be located. Heaven forbid one of us would fall into it out in the water.

When we had made our return walk through, we returned to our car and headed home. At home Moma would take the wonderful soft crabs and clean them. Under running cold water she would use a sharp knife and cut the eyes off, that bothered me cause they were not dead, never eat a dead crab. Then she would carefully lift their top shell first one side and then another to remove the gills or lungs the gray finger looking stuff, then the middle to gently remove the mustard looking stuff that I don't know what to call it. Rinsed ever so carefully they were gently laid on a platter beside each other and put in the fridge awaiting their evening outing on our dinner table!!!

Just before cooking the crabs, Moma would get the cast iron skillet filled 1/2 full with Crisco shortening, shortening mind ya. Then she would fill a plate full of flour. When the grease was hot one by one she would dredge the crabs in the flour and gently place them in the hot oil. They would fry on each side for about 4-5 minutes or until lightly golden and crispy. Platters filled with hot soft crabs would grace our table and the yummy delights would disappear faster than they were caught. The ones not cooked were frozen individually and saved until the next wonderful seafood meal.

It is funny how my parents always found a way to incorporated work into an outing of fun. The outing made Mom's afternoon since we were so worn out after the crabbing trip we always took a nap and slept sound. Memories, yep they stick with us and we try hard to pass them on to our kids and their kids. Somehow, in the translation things get lost. Hard for someone to have the same feelings having not been there, that makes it even more important to share physically the things you did as a child, as much as you can.