POLL: Your preferences for lobster, crab and shrimp

I voted for crab, although shrimp is truly a very close second. For me, there's nothing quite as delicately enticing as fresh steamed crab. I agree about the lobster. In fact when we went to Maine a few years ago, I vowed to eat lobster twice a day. As it turned out, after the first over-the-top huge lobster dinner, I wasn't ready for another one until a week later, and their famed "lobster rolls" didn't do a thing for me. Lobster scraps and mayo on a cheap hot dog bun. And they have the nerve to charge $7 for it!
Ines

[Jenise]

I voted for crab, although shrimp is truly a very close second. For me, there's nothing quite as delicately enticing as fresh steamed crab. I agree about the lobster. In fact when we went to Maine a few years ago, I vowed to eat lobster twice a day. As it turned out, after the first over-the-top huge lobster dinner, I wasn't ready for another one until a week later, and their famed "lobster rolls" didn't do a thing for me. Lobster scraps and mayo on a cheap hot dog bun. And they have the nerve to charge $7 for it!
Ines

You and Kirk have to come up during crabbing season, then. Annabelle and John have been planning on it this year, though of course her health considerations trump everything and it will only work out if she doesn't have to delay starting radiation.

When crab is good, it's a real treat. But I can get good lobster more often, it's less work to get it in me, and I like the big chunks. (I eat shrimp too often for it to be a treat.)

Did you want to open the question up a bit and bring in prawns, crawfish, Moreton Bay Bugs, and all the other hard-shell yummies?

This thread made me wonder whether folk's preferences reflected where they grew up. For instance I voted for crab, blue crab, and this probably reflects growing up crabbing with my grandfather. We would bring them home and steam them immediately. This produced some of my best food and best times memories.

G

This thread made me wonder whether folk's preferences reflected where they grew up. For instance I voted for crab, blue crab, and this probably reflects growing up crabbing with my grandfather. We would bring them home and steam them immediately. This produced some of my best food and best times memories.

G

Where did you grow up, Greg? We went crabbing too (and clamming, and scalloping among other "ings"), on the west coast of Florida. My parents still live there on the water, and I get a kick out of what my Dad calls his "Crab Condos" (concrete blocks submerged where stone crab like to hang out.) He pulls them up on a piece of hotdog or chicken leg, takes one of their claws and throws them back (so they can continue to defend themselves and I guess they grow the claw back.)

Where did you grow up, Greg? We went crabbing too (and clamming, and scalloping among other "ings"), on the west coast of Florida. My parents still live there on the water, and I get a kick out of what my Dad calls his "Crab Condos" (concrete blocks submerged where stone crab like to hang out.) He pulls them up on a piece of hotdog or chicken leg, takes one of their claws and throws them back (so they can continue to defend themselves and I guess they grow the claw back.)

I grew up crabbing in New Jersey, long before the water quality dropped and the crabs were still plentiful. Over the years, we also crabbed in Maryland and North Carolina.

We used to vacation in Maine every summer, so perhaps that is why I would have rated lobster as my second choice of the three.

G

[Jenise]

This thread made me wonder whether folk's preferences reflected where they grew up. For instance I voted for crab, blue crab, and this probably reflects growing up crabbing with my grandfather. We would bring them home and steam them immediately. This produced some of my best food and best times memories.

G

As someone whose affection for some foods has everything to do with wonderful memories from childhood, I think it's almost impossible to separate the two. Doesn't make our preferences based on same any less valid than preferences arrived at differently, though.

#1 - Lobster
#2 - shrimp (if prepared correctly for my tastes)
#3 - I'd rather eat tofu than crab, and I consider tofu an abomination of nature!

Wait Mr. 1K...are you trying to say you don't like crab? I wasn't really sure

We spent the Christmas and New Year's holidays in my hometown, and we rang in the new year with a party at my youngest sister's place. Her S.O. had ordered several pounds of stone crab claws that set him back $400 , and everybody was digging in like there was no tomorrow... except me. I cracked and ate the meat from one claw, and was so turned off by the fishy smell and the taste that I handed my plate to Gail, and grabbed a plate of whatever else we had to eat. I have been similarly unimpressed with every other crab or crab dish I have ever tried to eat.

My order of preference is lobster, shrimp, crab.

Maine lobster is hands down winner. Steamed, served with drawn butter applied very lightly.

I can eat shrimp with cocktail sauce for hours. Other preps are tasty too.

Not sure I really know all the crab varieties. Crab seems to come in many more flavors that lobster or shrimp. I love soft shell crabs when they are fresh, which means this time of year. I have not seen much Dungeness crab over the years....I lived in Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago, and Cincinnati. The prevalent crab offering has been King crab legs. They seem to take a lot of effort to extract the meat from the shell and membranes. Stone crab claws are delicious, but don't see those much either.

Moreton Bay Bugs are quite tasty.....will eat them again whenever I visit Oz next.

Mike,

Stone crabs live in the Gulf of Mexico, near Florida. Dungeness crabs live in the Pacific Ocean. So, unless you pay up, you'll naturally see less of them in your locus of life.

On Friday, fire destroyed Boston's James Hook & Co., a seafood wholesale business, which also destroyed 60,000 lbs of lobster.