Friday Fast

When I was a kid, Fridays meant Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks or McDonald’s fish sandwiches. The only other fish I remember having came in hefty frozen rectangular bricks. This was long before the days when Fed Ex overnight delivery made fresh fish available everywhere in the country. Meatless Fridays were, indeed, a sacrifice.

I still try to go “meatless” on Fridays, but, at least from November through June, it’s no sacrifice. Everyday during those months, thousands of pounds of Dungeness crab are hauled into Fisherman’s Warf in San Francisco. “Dungeness” has become almost a trademark symbol of the Bay Area, but the name comes from Dungeness, Washington, where the sweet, succulent crabs were first harvested commercially. Some people rate the Dungeness as just below lobster for taste and desirability. These are people who never got over being forced to eat fish sticks as children and have developed an unhealthy preference for ostentatious dining. Dungeness has it all over lobster.

There are lots of recipes for crab, and some can be quite involved. A recent episode of Iron Chef America featured crab as the secret ingredient, and it even wound up in the dessert course. But for me, simple is best. The crabs that are most plentiful and the ones I buy are already cooked and pink in the seafood case. The butcher or fish monger will clean and crack them for you, but it’s faster for me to do it myself. And, I save the shells to use later for bisque. Sometimes I steam some mussels and clams to accompany the crab, but usually I just drop the cleaned crab by itself into a large pot of boiling water. As the water returns to a boil, I melt some butter in the microwave. As soon as the water boils, I scoop the crab into a large bowl, serve it with a loaf of sourdough (another San Francisco trademark) and a bottle of chilled chardonnay. The next hour or two or three is all cracking, dipping, drinking and talking about how good life is.