Anyone know where to find She-Crab soup

I had this soup in Florida and it was incredible. Anyone know of anywhere in Chicagoland that has this ?


Thanks,
Todd

She Crab Soup has its origins in the lowcountry of South Carolina. Back before Tollner and Gage closed in Brooklyn, it was one of the few big city restaurants that I knew of serving it. I don't know of any place in Chicago that serves it as even most of the soul cooking here has its origins in the deep south versus the south Atlantic..

Gratefully, there is now a place in DC that will ship you a quart of she crab for an astronomical price if you are so inclined to spend such money. It is called the Market Inn Their website is:

http://www.freshcrabcakes.com/store/ind ... MENT_ID=35

She Crab is not terribly diffcult to make and certainly less expensive than ordering it from a restaurant in DC. I highly recommend a cookbook called Charleston Receipts which is the oft published and republished cookbook of the Junior League of Charleston, SC. It has many traditional recipes for lowcountry fare including she crab. If you cannot find it on Amazon or B&N websites, you may want to try calling Hoppin' John Bookstore in Charleston for a specila order. He aleways has them on order.

Hi,

I had She Crab soup for the first time recently. Is it reasonable to suggest it is similar to a Bisque?

Meanwhile, I found a recipe. You can get live blue crabs on Argyle street, just be sure to buy some crab picking tools. (Copy and/or print the recipes becaust Foodtv regularly rotates recipes in and out of their archive.)

Is lowcountry what they refer to as Geechee and Gullah?PBS ran a show America's Family Kitchen hosted by Vertamae Grosvenor that mentioned this, I believe.

Vertamae Grosvenor

A friend of mine worked with her on her show. She advised Vertamae did not know how to cook. I found the show painful to watch and often turned the channel. However, if you are able to watch for a mere few minutes, she stirs a pot very mechanically in circles with no feel or understanding.

Another cook I cannot watch on television is Debbie Fields. She is doing her best to maintain her manicure. Stiff, outstretched fingers just don't look natural while lightly pushing cookie dough into place.

Either one I cannot watch on TV.

hattyn wrote:Is lowcountry what they refer to as Geechee and Gullah?PBS ran a show America's Family Kitchen hosted by Vertamae Grosvenor that mentioned this, I believe.

Lowcountry refers to a specific geographic region, the southeastern corner of South Carolina. It's similar to "Tidewater", which refers to the Norfolk and surrounding port towns of Virginia (though these two regions are quite different).

Gullah is a dialect attributed to African-Americans that reside(d) in the Lowcountry. Somewhere in my many boxes of books I think I even have a Gullah cookbook. I'm not familiar with the term "Geechee".

I was lucky enough growing up to reside in both the Tidewater and Lowcountry areas. As other posters have noted, making she-crab soup isn't all that hard - though to do it properly it does require that someone be able to distinguish the Jimmy's from the Jenny's so that one actually has the *she*-crabs. If you are attracted to this sort of food then you might want to consider a natural progression into Frogmore Stew - a Lowcountry bastardized version of bouillibase (sp is wrong, but it's late and I'm lazy).

As to the most basic question, where to dine out and have She-crab soup - I don't think anywhere in Chicago. This is a very regional dish and I'm not aware that it's regularly available around here. Should you find yourself in Beaurfort, SC (pronounced Buufert as opposed to the NC version pronounced Bofert) you would have a number of options.

Gullah is the dialect, a combination of west African, English, French and Carribean words and dialects. Geechee is a term signifying the people of the barrier island regions who speak Gullah.

There are very few Geechee left now that Dafuskie Island has been developed. Pat Conroy wrote one of his very early books "Conrack" based upon a year that he spent teaching school on Dafuskie in the early 70s. He does a pretty good job "pigeoning" the dialect into print as most of the speakers of Gullah were not literate and it was rarely, if ever, written.

My grandfather grew up on one of the barrier islands near Charleston and was very comfortable conversing in Gullah with the Geechee until his death a few years ago.

Having grown up in that part of the country, i'm not so sure that anyone I knew thought of Frogmore Stew (most towns call the stew by their own town name-Frogmore has stuck outside the region because it is unique) was a bastardized of anything. Instead, I think that its components, shrimp, sweet corn, smoked sausage and onion reflected the regionalism of the local harvest on those islands where basically, all of those things could be had for free if you didn't mind tending your own garden plot or raising and butchering your own hog. It's a truly unique regional dish.

todd1m wrote:Anyone know of anywhere in Chicagoland that has this ?

Tod,

Occasionally Davis Street Fish Market in Evanston has She Crab soup as a wall board special. Davis Street is one of my favorite places, I always sit at the oyster bar, they have a rotating list of fresh as a daisy oysters, and get a dozen oysters and a basket of crisp tater tots.


Actually this is not much help, I can't remember the last time Davis Street had She Crab soup as a daily special, though I specifically remember them having it. The last few times I was there the soup of the day was Campeche, which my wife likes quite a bit.

Last time out at Davis Street the Malpeque and Canada Cup's were excellent as were the Rhode Island Wilds. There were a few RI Wilds that were huge, as in bigger than my wife's palm, with the meat of the oyster weighing (wild guess coming up) 2-3 ounces. These, unlike very large oysters I've had in the past, were very good, with a light brine flavor and firm, but not chewy, texture.

Enjoy,
Gary

Davis Street Fishmarket
501 Davis Street
Evanston, IL. 60201
847-869-3474

The term "bastardized" was probably ill-chosen. It wasn't my intent to imply any lineage back to boullibase but rather compare it as probably the closest better-known dish I could think of for someone that might not know what's in Frogmore Stew. In hindsight that was a mistake.

I know this is a bit old, but I found She-Crab Soup at the Fresh Market grocery store out in the Geneva Commons area of Geneva, IL. I know it's a far western suburb, but thought you'd like to know!

I think I just read that Don's Fishmarket in Skokie has it on their menu for a crab-fest special. There have been a couple of posts about Don's in this forum. People seem to prefer eating in the lounge area rather than the dining room.

Suzy