Maybe we should change the angle a little, and talk about our most memorable seafood meals.
Although there are dozens I could discuss, two really stand out.
The first is when I learned to make seafood gumbo. There were five of us in camp---a 40 minute boatride into the swamp---on a duck hunt. While the others went to the blinds, I stayed behind to learn the secret of our hosts gumbo. We got as much hunting off the porch as the others did in the blinds. Run inside---stir the gumbo---run out to the porch---quack, quack, quack on the calls---boom, boom---pick up the ducks. Run back inside, stir the gumbo.
I use that recipe to this day.
The second was also a duck hunt. We were out in the harbor off Ocracoke Island, in the Outer Banks, and somehow left the lunch in the guides boat. No problem. The blind was built on an oyster bar, and when the tide went out we broke oysters free, shucked them with our pocket knives, and ate them out of the shells---sweet and salty as home-made sin.
That whole trip was a hoot, as we were exploring all the varieties of waterfowling out on the OBX. Every island has its own blind design, its own style of gunning. That same trip I picked up the recipe for the world's greatest cocktail sauce, which I believe I've posted here before.
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