Crabbing

I took my kids crabbing when we went to the beach. I chose a fish market on the sound where shrimpboats unloaded their catch, and where crabs congregated. I showed them how to tie chicken necks to a line and coax the crabs into our nets. It's all a lot of fun - until you have to cook the crabs. You boil them alive! They scream. I like to think it might just be air escaping instead of screams.

When we finished crabbing and headed for the car, I saw a man who worked at the fish market and figured he'd know a lot about cooking seafood. So I asked him, "Is there a faster, more humane way to kill a crab than boiling him alive?" He said, "Sure," and he took a crab from our bucket and pulled the back off of him. Just opened him up like a makeup compact.

After I recovered, we took those babies home and boiled them!