And during summer, that meant blue crabs. They lived mostly off what they could find. When plantation owners fled the mosquitoes and oppressive humidity during the summer, the Gullah-Geechee were left nearly alone on the islands. Twitter A food tradition built by enslaved peopleīlue crab’s roots here begin with the Gullah-Geechee people, enslaved West Africans who worked the rice and cotton plantations along the Carolina coast. And perhaps more than any other food in the Lowcountry, blue crabs just taste like home. They are childhood memories and long summer afternoons on the water. His comment speaks to the overall importance of blue crab in this part of the country: It’s both comfort food and economic driver, part of not just the food culture but also the culture of social gatherings and family picnics. “So even now, on our takeout menu we have fried soft shells every day, soft shell crab sandwiches, rice bowls with fried soft shell, just to keep that going.” “We wanted to make sure people had something comforting, and we wanted to make sure our local fishermen didn’t miss out on this important time of the year,” Carter says. With soft shell season all but gone for 2020, Carter, like many restaurateurs, is trying to keep the spirit - as well as his restaurant and local fishermen’s livelihoods - going despite the unusual conditions.
It’s something they wait all year for, and we are completely at the mercy of Mother Nature in terms of soft shells.” “That was a real bummer for a lot of people around there.
“Soft shell season started like the day after the governor mandated we close our dining rooms,” says Brandon Carter, the chef and owner of Farm Bluffton. It comes but once a year, and this year the timing was particularly bad.
The season can last for as long as a few weeks, or last only a couple of days. In early April, the Lowcountry’s famous blue crabs molt their exoskeletons and are, for a brief moment, soft enough to eat whole. I don’t think people realize how important it is.” “Soft shell season, everyone goes haywire around that. There’s not a hint of hyperbole in her voice. “It’s the most important day in the calendar,” says Hanna Raskin, food editor and chief critic at the Post and Courier in Charleston.
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