World’s Only Renewable Seafood
Is stone crab the world’s only renewable seafood? Fishermen remove one or both claws of the crab at sea, then return the critter to the water so it can regrow them for next season. In fact, it’s illegal to bring whole stone crab to the wharf in Florida. I recently traveled to the Florida Keys where stone crab is king to find out if these declawed crabs live and regenerate their limbs as advertised. Then I wrote a story for Atlas Obscura’s culinary site, Gastro Obscura, to explore this BIG BIG claim that stone crab are the world’s only renewable seafood. Here’s a short excerpt from the feature article…
“Floridians have been fishing, selling, serving, and eating stone crab since the 1890s. Then, in 1913, Joe Weiss opened a Miami Beach lunch counter, where, a few years later, a Harvard ichthyologist on a research trip showed up with a burlap sack of live crabs, asking if Joe’s ever served them. Although he was skeptical, Weiss tried boiling them and serving the claws chilled and cracked with hash browns, coleslaw, and mayonnaise. They were a hit.”
Read the rest of the story at Atlas Obscura here.
