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T
he gulf is home to more than 60
types of crabs, but for most Gulf
Coast locals, crab means blue crabs,
so named for their blue-tinted shells and
claws.Those claws make it easy to tell male
and female blue crabs apart: male claw tips
are blue; female claw tips are red.
Blue crabs are caught year-round, but
harvests peak during the warm summer and
fall months. We get our blue crabs from
fishermen and seafood distributors all over
the Gulf Coast. In Alabama,we source them
from the same place that sells shrimp, crabs,
oysters and whole fish to some of the finest
seafood restaurants in the state — Royal
Lagoon Seafood in Theodore, Alabama.
Royal Lagoon’s owner Val Hammond was
born and raised in New Orleans and spent
summers on Dauphin Island working in
the shrimp industry. He moved to Alabama
and at age 22 went into business for himself.
Today, he employs nearly two dozen people.
—James, Rouses Seafood Director
The Mobile Bay Causeway
The scenic causeway overlooking Mobile
Bay is the road to seafood heaven, with
famous seafood restaurants like Felix’s Fish
Camp (our favorite spot to watch a sunset),
and BlueGrill Restaurant, home of the crab
omelette sandwich and great crabcakes.
Another favorite, the Original Oyster
House, was featured on Man vs. Food. Get
the cheese grits and anything seafood.
Bayley’s Corner
Bayley’s SeafoodRestaurant on theDauphin
Island Parkway in Theodore, Alabama gets
credit for two of Lower Alabama’s best —
the West Indies Salad and fried crab claws
.
The late, great restaurateur — and raconteur
— Bill Bayley invented both dishes.
Bill and his wife Ethyl opened a steak and
seafood restaurant and one-room grocery in
1947. The West Indies salad, a combination
of crabmeat, onions and vinegar, came first.
Bill used lump crabmeat in the salad. That
left a lot of claws, which he broke to scoop
out the meat. Sometime in the early 1960s,
Bill figured out a more elegant claw cracking
technique, which left the claw meat attached
to the pincher. Voila, crab claws.
Claws for Applause:
BLUE CRABS
AT SEASON’S PEAK