I love food, and talk about it often, so I will just put this one on here.
And I will start with this. When I moved from the west coast to the south, I started to encounter "Boiled Peanuts" which is a SC and GA thing. The first time I tried them, I hated them. Slimy ass peanuts. Gross.
Anyway, a couple of years ago, my wife got some at my son's baseball game. I had a few, and loved them. Not sure what changed, but they are the tits now. They sell them in cans at the grocery store. They sell kits where you can boil them yourself. But I will tell you this: The best boiled peanuts are from Circle K gas stations. They just take a big ass number 10 can of them, and pour them into a table top warmer. You scoop them out. Hot, and delicious....
Gas Station boiled peanuts are the shit. If you haven't tried them and you ever bump into some. Try them. You're welcome.
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day..."
Maybe it was years ago. I only eat one big meal a day now. Afternoon. Been like that for years. Not somethin I planned. I would probably be near impossible to live with. I get along with me great.
Boiled Peanuts are a "thing" around here I reckon. I know there are a few places you can find them on the side of the road. My favorite is the little tent off the side of the road on SR 520, headed West from I 95 as you're getting out in the Country of Cocoa, or head East if you're coming from Orlando on 417 / 528, just before you get to 95 in Cocoa. There's nothing else around, so when you see the little signs for boiled peanuts, get ready for a tent on the side of the road. The cajun ones are extra good. Let them get there and heat those puppies up first. we made the mistake of getting there right when they set up and had to wait for them one time, takes a while for those giant pots to get hot.
Oh, shit. Lenny's with me on afternoon vittles.
+1 for boiled peanuts. Absolute staple down here. Roadside > gas station though
I'll tell you what I've been digging lately. BBQ with my eggs.
Zach - we've hashed this out before, but I'm pretty sure we both think our backyard Q is the best in town. That's fine - you take SC and I'll hold it down up here.
A guy I play hockey with is a chef and he sponsored a team in our league, so I feel compelled to support him. Been ordering a few pounds "off menu" for the last few weeks and it's decent. Not as good as mine (obviously), but it'll do; especially for $10/lb.
Anyway. BBQ w/ eggs. Could be the move.
@shredmachine Dude, I will put eggs on anything. For sure... And as for the SC/NC thing. Here is what I will tell you. SC has 4 sauces, all broken down by region. The most notable one, which everyone associates with SC is the mustard BBQ sauce. The other 3 are variations of a vinegar sauce, but with tomato paste or ketchup added.....
That said, I make two sauces at home. I do a SC mustard sauce, that is more of a dipping sauce really for me. But out of all the sauces I have tasted and used on my meats, I prefer the North Carolina vinegar sauce. Specifically, the one that is "Eastern Carolina Sauce" which is from the coastal regions of NC.... It's basically all pepper and vinegar. I added few other things. But this is what I spritz my Brisket with. I use it on cooks for Pork should and ribs... That is my go to....
So, I actually have adopted the coastal NC sauce as my main staple for cooking. The mustard sauce is thick and does funny things when left on meat in a smoker for 10 hours etc....
@zach619 SC mustard sauce has really grown on me over the years. I'll never have it up here, but I'll occasionally order it on the side when I'm down in the low country.
Eastern NC is the undisputed GOAT and I make my own too; although, I will drop a dash or two of ketchup in there to help hold things together.
Eastern is the Michael Jordan and SC is the Scottie.
For me it's Kimchi. LOVE it. This was last night's Kimchi hot dog, with some spicy brown mustard that probably should have been spread before I took the picture LOL. Man...it was SO good.
@mitchell I love a good Kimchi. My sister was adopted from South Korea when I was 8, she was 3. She showed up with the clothes on her back and a backpack. In the backpack, there were "Pocky Stick", which are asian cookie sticks half dipped in chocolate and she had two mason jars of homemade kimchi from Korea. We got back home from BWI, put the Kimchi in the fridge. The next morning, both mason jars had exploded in the fridge. Blew the door open and destroyed everything inside.... I was young and had no idea what the shit was, but they ferment it underground for months, then can or jar it, and I guess when you take it up to 30,000 feet for a 20 hour flight, that is a dangerous combination. Luckily the shit all blew up in the fridge, not on the plane and not in her backpack...
But as an adult, I love a great Kimchi. Shit is wild though.
Crabs have been on fire this summer. My wife and I keep getting heavy ones from a lady down the road. She calls herself the Salty Witch, and is a real Waterwoman who raises her own oysters in Rehoboth Bay on leased bottom.
These were 7" tip to tip.
Crabs have been on fire this summer. My wife and I keep getting heavy ones from a lady down the road. She calls herself the Salty Witch, and is a real Waterwoman who raises her own oysters in Rehoboth Bay on leased bottom.
Nice Mitch. We have had a decent season for blue crabs down here also. Obviously not heavy fuckers like up in MD, but here is a photo of one of the male #1s from a few weeks back. There is a spot on the mainland that goes crabbing every day and they are my go to. I call the day before a reserve whatever I need. I never get them steamed locally, always live, because I have had some bad experiences with the way they cook them down here. The spot that I go to has a giant steam pot and "steams them" but down south, especially in SC, they fucking boil everything. And I have gotten some soggy crabs... So I always get them live and just do them myself at the house.
And Mitch, I wasn't aware of this, but we were out at a family dinner for my wife's grandmother's birthday. And pretty much everyone there is from Baltimore. So they were talking about the crab season. My wife's cousin owns his own crab truck in Baltimore. He has a few guys that crab for him and he built a bad ass steam truck.
Anyway, they were telling me how a shit load of people are getting bacterial infections in the chesapeake bay this year. Like WAY more than normal, so they were saying that a lot of the Baltimore locals have been hesitant about the crabs this year....
I assume water anywhere near the Bmore Inner Harbor is sketchy, at best, no matter the year or the season. Have you guys been having any issues "down the shore"?
I almost stepped on a decent size crab on the beach this morning, not that big, but caught me off guard lol, like, woah little dude, a little warning from below would be good. 🤣
Haha. I got pinched by one on Saturday... Little blue crab... And when I was over in your old hood in St. Pete Beach, we were on shell island and being a "Maryland Native" "I know how to handle a crab", so there was like a 4" blue crab running around the beach. I crabbed it by the back of the shell, and this mother fucker RIPPED into me. Left me with like a 2 inch gash, bleeding everywhere. I was like, yeah, that was a bad idea. haha.
Damn! Mean little fucker! HAHA
you need tongs for those little ones. The bigguns aren't as flexible I think.
@oipaul Yeah, that little bastard did some serious karate moves on me =) I had never seen a blue crab twist like that. I also don't usually mess with little ones like that, but dang.
@Zach Do they really boil blue crabs down south? I mean I'm up for anything, but I feel like crabs are best steamed.
That said, I was in South Carolina one time and we went to an oyster roast. It really seemed more like they just steamed a huge basket of oyster for a few minutes until the shells open, and then just dumped the basket out on a picnic table. The oysters were cooked, but just barely. I LOVED it.
Yes, oyster roasts are our thing. I prefer the local clusters, but the "single selects" are easier to eat. The clusters have anywhere from 3-8 oysters all clumped together.
When we do a big one, a legit "roast", we put logs under a giant steel plate, once it's piping hot, you dump the oysters on the plate and cover it with a soaking wet towel. Only takes 5-7 minutes for them to pop. Once the pop, they are done. Barely cooked, but they get really chewy if you do it too long. Every couple of minutes, you remove the towel, dip it back in a bucket of water and cover them back up... So, that is the official way to do it. Some people use wet burlap, but I prefer a plain white towel....
Now, if you want to try this at home, I have perfectly the art on a smaller scale. I will fire up the green egg, with direct heat, so no deflector plate. Same as just firing up a regular weber grill. Choose wood chips if you like smoke or whatever. Get disposable aluminum hotel pans (half pans), fill them with about 2 inches of water. Once the water is hot and almost boiling, you fill your pans with the oysters, and cover them with a wet rag.... The boil/steam pops all of the oysters, and in my opinions, the extra water in the bottom of the pans makes them oysters super tender and juicy. Sometimes without enough moisture, they can get over cooked or a little dry....
I do that a few times per year on the backyard. My wife and kids love them. A real bushel of oysters is a LOT more than you would think. We have sat in the yard picking oysters for like 4 hours during football season before...
So yeah, that is the SC thing. Oyster Roasts....
And yes, aside from a few spots that actually have crabbers and know what they are doing and steam them, it is common place for restaurants and festivals in the area to have "Crab Boils"... They suck. The shells fill with water and they are all soggy....
I bought a bushel of live blues like 5 years ago at this little road side seafood stand. They just happened to have them. People gathered around me like I was an alien. Like, what are you going to do with them... Oh my gosh....
The first restaurant I opened, I had a lowcountry boil on the menu with local shrimp. I added a steamed local blue crab to each of the dishes, and after a few weeks, I had to make laminated cards for guests explaining how to pick and eat the blue crab. I have had people literally ask me to pick the crabs for them, I am like. No can do... So after a few months, I had to remove the blue crab and start using snow crab legs.... I guess if you are visiting Maryland, you are expected to figure it out. We have TONS of blue crabs down here, but locals and tourists alike have no fucking clue what to do with them.
living dwntn Charleston back in the day, there's a fishing spot right by a nearby marina. I'd bring a rod and a bucket on my beach bike, just reel in the blue crabs with cut up mullet. Come back to the house, open em up and stir with eggs. They were tasty, more just easy to catch.
I'm with Zach on this one, oyster clusters are the way to go. I kinda frown up single clusters and fancy seafood spots dishing out festive oysters. I alone can dismantle a bushel of oysters easily at those roasts. Adding the wet towel isn't my fav choice, but the charred oysters you get once done right almost makes it all worth it. I just feel like that system can fail easily if not timed out purrfect
@unfurled Yeah, I have tried it multiple ways. Our friends from church have a crazy waterfront mansion, so they host an oyster roast with like 200 people each fall. Since I am an F&B guy, I always get handed a beer and get roped into oyster duty. He has a pretty cool setup. He uses a mesh grill plate. He built it himself. It's about the size of a small pool table. He will unload a whole bushel onto it and cover it with wet burlap. They come out okay, but with the open grated grill, the water and moisture all drips down into the fire and he has it set pretty high above the flames and they always come out really dry. We have tried that method in some of our big restaurants, like the one you have been up to in Charleston, but when you are cooking off 40 cases of selects at a time, which is 4,000 oysters in a day, we had to learn to be efficient about it, so IMO, the moisture is the key. It gets nice smoke on it anyway, but the tenderness just gets retained with the moisture....
And I personally prefer getting the culsters, but what I will tell you is this, at least in the Hilton Head area, clusters are COVERED in pluff mud. They give them a spray down, but we literally have to spread them out on tarps in the parking lot and pressure wash them. Same when I get them myself, I take out the pressure washer and have to spend 30 minutes just prepping the clusters....
So, I love the clusters, that is how to do it. But when you do it on any kind of a large scale, it's a pain in the dick....
And speaking of oysters, I always grew up with the "If there is no R in the month, don't eat the oysters".... I did so in San Diego back in the day in like August and I got sick as fuck... But I guess now, they are farm raising them in different ways all over the place, so we get them year round.
Around here, they buy parcels of oyster beds, like everywhere else, and they attach these floating oyster boxes and once every day or two, they flip the boxes upside down, so half are under water and the other half are above water, basically mimicking a daily tide cycle over a couple day stretch. The water here is still 86 degrees right now, so I don't know how the fuck that makes eating the oysters safe....
But at any rate, I eat oysters in the fall and winter primarily. Especially the raw ones....
And I will also say this, I believe that South Carolina has the best oysters on Earth. They are small, but super briney, with a salinity that you won't find up in VA or MD or down in Florida. And the intracoastals here are the most nutrient rich waterways in the US, so they have a shit load of flavor. I am not a fan of eating giant oysters raw anyway, so I love the oysters here. My only issue with them is that the shells break apart pretty easily, so when shucking them raw, you really have to be gentle. You can just manhandle the shell or it will crack in half.
Zach - The oyster roast I went to were DEFINITELY clumps, Even shaking the basket out on the table, a lot of the oysters were in clumps so cooked unevenly with big and little ones all bonded together. I LOVED that, because I like raw and cooked oysters equally.
I will say this about oysters. the BEST oysters I have ever had (and I've even a lot of different varieties) were at a place in Okeechobee Florida in a restaurant called Lightsey's. They were Gulf oysters, and they were MASSIVE. This place is legit southern food - Okra, Turtle soup, Catfish, Cobia, Gator, Frog Legs, Collards, Cooter....but man the Oysters....
We get the gulf oysters in our off seasons. We have gotten the Okeechobees before, but the massive distribution region down there is Apalachicola. They farm shit tons of the big, fat boys. I agree that if you like the plump, meaty ones with a little less brine, then the Florida gulf ones are money. Second to those, which we also get a lot of the time, are from James River Virginia. They have even less brine than the ones in Florida, because I assume the James River is more of a brackish water way, kind of like the Chesapeake...