Crab Cracking for the Lee Brothers
August 20,2009
Nathalie Dupree
The crabs were not cooked in stale spices, but instead just cooked in an iron pot over a stove. Every once in a while Matt or Ted would fish out a few with a long tong that belonged to Tom and I wish I owned, and throw the crabs on the table. We would pounce on them, as they were just a few hours old. So fresh they melted in your mouth. No need for hot sauce or butter or anything else. Just crab. We cracked away until we were sated.
The table was under a live oak tree that would rival any, providing shade and a background that was extraordinary. After a while the crabber joined us that had caught the crab that morning. He is also a shrimper, and immediately fell in love with Mary Alice, who has just finished a best selling book on shrimping.
Mary Alice Monroe and Dotty Frank
That night, my Les Dames d’ Escoffier group here in Charleston hosted a cake party as a fund raiser after a showing of Julie and Julia. Everyone had such a good time, and there were some mighty good cakes there. I brought chocolate snowball, covered in whipping cream, and it was as popular as any!
To see how to crack and eat a crab, go to postandcourier.com. Hit video and food, and you’ll see me. The okra shot is pretty terrific, by the way, shot in an okra field.
My article for the postandcourier.com for this week is crab as well, if you want some recipes!
This morning I saw Carolina Gold harvested, the dew still on the ground. Some people want gold metal, I wanted to see the Gold of novels and books, the heart of the culture of the state of South Carolina for centuries. One look at the field of rice makes clear the reason for the name,Carolina Gold. The most coveted and sought after rice of those centuries is golden, riding on a sea of tall green stalks. The rice’s gold signifies it is the right time to start to dry the rice. The stalks are removed with a hook (a scythe) leaving a foot or so of stubble that will be turned back into the ground later. The sheaths of rice are then spread on top of the stubble to dry before being collected. At one time it would have been harvested starting at four in the morning, to beat the heat of the day, after a cold breakfast. 
August was the usual time in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, according to the meticulous records the planters kept – detailing dialing weather and rainfall, among other things. Thomas Jefferson loved this rice, his favorite among 98 varieties he collected. (Stories abound about people coming up to him and slipping rice into his pockets. Finally the planters had to tell him to stop sending new varieties – they liked what they had.) The fields have been flooded with fresh water and drained three times. Now it is up to the sun. At Middleton, historically dressed workers scythe the tall grasses that were formerly worked by slaves. 
Charleston, once the richest city in America, had a population that was more slaves than whites. When South Carolina was at its richest, the rice most plentiful, the economy collapsed with the aftermath of the civil war. Makes me think about the adage about riding high before a fall. Feels similar to the economy’s collapse last year.