Let us dig a little deeper into the subject of island food, for now putting aside other favorites such as stewed pine cookies and duff (a desert of bread dough boiled in a sweet, thick milk-based broth), chicharrón con yuca, mutton pepper bottles, red beans and white rice, as well as stewed liver and onions served with fried green plantains. Let’s put those aside and talk about blue land crabs.
A blue land crab boil is an event that brings friends and families together. It is late in the year and it is rainy season, so the crabs are on the run. Undoubtedly a land crab boil has lately taken place somewhere on Roatan, or one soon will take place. One that sticks in my memory was held sometime in the 1970s at Mr. Harry Dixon’s home on French Harbour Point. That house, which is long gone, stood atop tall stilts not far from where the red-roofed Catholic church stands today. The front of Mr. Harry’s house had a clear view of the reef and the Honduras mainland, and the back of the house faced a line of tall mangroves behind which is the French Harbour Lagoon.
Crab boil is an event that brings friends and families together.
A small dory wharf made of guava tree posts and 1’ x 12’ planks of wood went through the mangroves and over the swamp mud, leading out to the Lagoon.
A 55-gallon drum with the top half cut away was nearly filled with salt water hauled in from inside the reef in 5-gallon buckets. The drum sat atop dried reef rocks in Mr. Harry’s yard of compacted white sand. The drum, which was burnt black from previous crab boils, had a newly kindled fire beneath it to bring the water to a boil. With the sun soon setting, the salt water would be boiling in time for when the crab hunters were expected to return. Adults were casually socializing on Mr. Harry’s front porch, while others mingled here and there in the yard. Boys and girls were running to and fro, collecting firewood and stacking it onto a pile near the drum. Two whole bunches of green bananas that were to be boiled along with the crabs were laid against the base of a coconut tree in the yard, where Frank Lowell stood smoking a Royal cigarette and watching the fire build. As someone cursed at the sand flies that were then starting to come out, and as the Dixon’s family dog Cheleko sauntered over to say hello to Frank, the dipping sauce was being made up stairs in the house’s kitchen by Ms. Orella. A typical recipe, which could vary from town to town or from family to family, would have been Naturas ketchup, vinegar, lime juice, diced onions, thinly sliced mutton peppers and salt.
Against this backdrop, the voice of a boy carried from the wharf towards and up through the house and across the whole yard: “They’re coming! They’re coming!” He had spotted two paddle dories coming West down the Lagoon, just after they had turned at the Point. Each dory had two men, the designated hunters for the crab boil.
