Crab Meat

CRISFIELD - In an era when crabbers struggle to make a living from the Chesapeake Bay, when the crab meat in supermarkets may come from the Far East and whole crabs from down South, it was perhaps fitting that the winner of the Crab Cooking Contest here came from across Maryland's northern border. Marrita Blatchley, a retiree and active volunteer from Shrewsbury, Pa., applied her love of cooking and good food to Maryland blue crab and came up with a winner. Her Crab-and-Corn Pudding With Sweet Red-Pepper Cream was novel enough and tasty enough to earn her first place among main dishes and grand prize in the cook-off, which drew 18 cooks to the classroom stoves at Woodson Middle School in Crisfield during the Labor Day weekend.

Is your Maryland crab cake true blue? Only a small number of restaurants in Maryland reliably make their crab cakes from local crabmeat, and the state does not require restaurants to identify the specific source of the meat in crab cakes. True Blue, a new  labeling and promotion initiative from The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR), hopes to give restaurants that do use Maryland crabmeat a claw up on those that fill their crab cakes with inexpensive imported meat from Indonesia and Venezuela.

Angels Aemke of Wilmington, N.C., was seeking the recipe for the famous crab cakes that were served at Angelina's restaurant in Baltimore. She had a friend who used to send her these wonderful treats, but now that the venerable restaurant has closed (and was recently sold), she was hoping to find the recipe so that she could make the crab cakes at home. Jo Ann Nuetzel from Parkville sent in a recipe that was printed some years ago in The Sun and was reported to have come from the owner of Angelina's, the late Robert Reilly.

Experiencing crabs is definitely the best way to understand them, cookbook author John Shields -- and almost every other citizen of the Chesapeake region -- will agree. Here are three recipes from Mr. Shields' latest book, "The Chesapeake Bay Crab Cookbook" (Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc., 1992, $10.95. Photographs in the book are by Baltimore Sun photographer Jed Kirschbaum.)In the introduction to this recipe, which is from Little Italy resident Dolores Keh, Mr. Shields notes:"Dolores suggests serving these wonderful stuffed shrimp with a tangy cocktail sauce, macaroni and cheese, steamed broccoli and corn bread.

Pat Bourne's request for a cream of crab soup was met with more than a dozen recipes sent in by readers. Two stood out, say our food testers at the Baltimore International Culinary College.;/ Ann Hoskins of Dundalk sent in this recipe:Maryland cream of crab soupServes six.1 pound Maryland crab meat1 vegetable bouillon cube1 cup boiling water1/4 cup chopped onion1/4 cup butter or margarine2 tablespoons flour1 teaspoon salt1/4 teaspoon celery salt1/8 teaspoon pepperfew drops of hot sauce1 quart milkparsely flakes, for garnishRemove cartilage from crab meat.

Senate panel rejects bill to lower limit for drunken driving Legislation that would have lowered the legal blood-alcohol limit for drunken driving was defeated in a Senate committee yesterday. The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee rejected the measure, which was sponsored by Sen. Ida G. Ruben, a Montgomery Democrat. Anti-drunken driving advocates have pushed for the change for years. Under current law, a driver can be convicted of driving while intoxicated with a blood-alcohol level of .10. The bill would have dropped that figure to .08. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have the lower alcohol limit.

Watching what goes into your shopping cart is a first step in making health-wise food choices, but how you cook is equally important. Steaming and poaching, low-fat sauteing and stir-frying, roasting and baking, broiling and grilling are cooking techniques that enhance flavor, minimize the loss of nutrients, and don't contribute excessive fat. Steam cooks vegetables very quickly, so they retain more of their nutrients. It takes just 4 to 6 minutes to steam 2 pounds of asparagus stalks, snapped and stood upright in the steamer, and 1 to 2 minutes to do 1 1/4 pounds of trimmed snow peas.

Backfin Blues, a friend kept telling me, had the goods. His former in-laws live in Port Deposit, an absurdly picturesque small town on the east bank of the Susquehanna River, a few miles north of Havre de Grace, as the crow flies. That's how he came to know about Backfin Blues, which sits right on Port Deposit's Main Street, a lively looking commercial strip. It was, on balance, worth the drive up from Baltimore. The covered back deck, where we were seated, looks out onto the Susquehanna and is a pleasant place to spend an evening.

Item: Zatarain's New Orleans Style Crab Cake Mix What you get: About 10 crab cakes Cost: About $2.29 Nutritional content: 100 calories; 1 gram fat; no saturated fat; 460 milligrams sodium Preparation time: About 4 minutes pan-fried on stove top Review: It seems sacrilegious to even consider another city's take on Baltimore's most beloved dish. And Zatarain's mix is not what we in the Free State expect of our crab meat. That said, these New Orleans-style crab cakes aren't bad. They're just heavy on filler, overflavored (ingredients include onion, clam juice, hot sauce and Parmesan and Romano cheeses)