Zach Meansholds aloft a Chesapeake Bay hard-shell crab,
another in a long series of creatures he is to consume
in the lingering happy hours assembled on the Means Rest front porch in Pleasant Valley, MD
with clustered family members, traditionally sitting around a long groaning board
of comestibles, shell-bearing and otherwise.
Partaking of such gifts of the sea is a science studied not by this midlander editor, who is used to other species of larger crab, such as the Alaskan King, where one gets chunks of meat of a size that can be handled more easily. (He gets them rarely, due to the price.) But the editor is let off by this eastern shore family of pickers and leg suckers, for he is not a blood Means. His daughter, however, Erin and her friend Patrick dug right in and acquited themselves admirably. See later post.
This crustacean festival was merrily held earlier this month, in celebration of the 60th wedding anniversary of patriarch and matriarch John and Jean Means. To our knowledge, nobody ate 60 crabs, but someone might have. An ample number, 4 bushels, were parceled in, and many eaters' guts were filled, and devourees'spilled. Part of the fun seems to be in seeing how much extraneous matter can cling to one's oblivious fingers or mouthal regions. A veritable H. Fielding Tom Jones scenario.
Sister-in-law Doreen, Zach's mom, shown to the side here smiles hungrily after eating only her approximately 20th crab.
Zach, her college son, a shot-putter and hammer-thrower, illustrated at the top , handles that crab as though it weighed only a few ounces. Which it did.
More on a post to follow.
