The first instruction for spaghetti and crabs was to buy the blue claws, a task easily accomplished by making a trip to the crab shack that still can be found on Mount Ephraim Avenue in Woodlynne. But I do vaguely recall once driving to Delaware, perhaps because the shack's shipment had not come in yet or my father was not satisfied with the size of the available crabs. Oh, and jimmies only.
Once provisioned with the necessary ingredients, including bread from the Erlton Bakery on Marlton Pike in Camden, we would return home in the early afternoon. Now where most people steam their crabs, my father's preparations were more elaborate. He would kill and clean them before cooking.
This operation, carried out in the shade of our house in the backyard, required tongs, a sturdy blade, and, if needed, a hammer. In the late 1960s or 1970s, my father introduced a rectangular cleaver with a round wooden handle he obtained from an acquaintance who happened to own a Chinese restaurant in Cherry Hill.
Grabbing a crab with the tongs, my father would place it on its back on a chopping block on the picnic table, and using the natural line on the blue claw's belly as a guide, he would split it in two. If the cut did not go all the way through, he would tap the blade with a hammer to finish the job. As the cleaver went in, the crab's claws moved inward, seemingly reaching for the metal, only to fall when the action was completed. Legs often twitched briefly afterward. The halves were then collected and taken to the kitchen, where the back shell and innards were removed under running water.
Now it was time to cook.
Before dealing with the crabs, my father would make a basic marinara sauce of garlic, oil and crushed tomatoes.
