To those of you unfamiliar with the deep South, allow me to give a very short geography lesson. The part of the East Coast in the U.S. that includes the coast of Georgia and South Carolina (and maybe the extreme north Florida coast, depending on who you ask) is referred to as the “Low Country”. I imagine it’s because it’s low to sea level and it’s really, really country, but I actually have no idea. Major cities in the area include Savannah, Hilton Head Island and Charleston.
I’m from Florida originally, but I grew up in the Low Country. While I am glad to have left the area, the one thing I miss is the seafood. I have never had seafood like that anywhere else in my life. When I was growing up, my parents would steam live blue crabs and oysters in a giant stockpot and we would eat like kings.
If we got enough people together, we’d have what we called a “Low Country Boil”, which is usually shrimp, potatoes, corn on the cob and smoked sausage tossed into a stockpot and boiled over a mixture of water and Old Bay seasoning. (I have to been Low Country Boils that included crawfish, pork neckbones, snow crab legs and king crab legs as well.) Traditionally, the food is dumped onto a table spread with newspaper and everybody eats with their hands. Since the kids are getting a little older, I decided it was time for their first Low Country Boil.
So we all sat around the table and ate with our hands. Tigger ate almost everything she could find, but kept putting her eaten corn cobs back in the pile. Ick. Pooh only wanted to eat the “shrimps” and Roo seemed partial to the potatoes. Daddy got full the fastest and I dipped my food in a mixture of ketchup and hot sauce. (It’s a Southern thing.) Apparently, it was a pretty big hit. There were only scraps left and everybody was still alive afterward. If nobody dies, it’s a good cooking night in our house.