Shrimp
Determining what size shrimp are can be overwhelming, vague, and sometimes misleading. Terms such as “jumbo,” “large,” and “medium” are only marketing terms and can be left for the salesperson to define what “jumbo” shrimp means. The true size of a shrimp is determined by how many shrimp are in a pound. The numbers you see on the sign at a reputable seafood market (such as 21/25 shrimp) are the amount of shrimp that are in a pound. The bigger the number, the smaller than shrimp. Example: a shrimp marked 40/50 is smaller than a shrimp marked 21/25. Basically, there are between 21 and 25 shrimp per pound; we use 21/25 shrimp at Miss Meg’s not because they are considered “jumbo,” but mainly because they are the perfect size for frying. They are big enough to taste the shrimp instead of the breading. Also at Miss Meg’s we use wild Georgia shrimp--no substitutions!!! “What are ‘wild shrimp’?” you ask. When buying shrimp, you have two choices, “wild” or “farm raised.” These two terms are basically self-explanatory: “wild” means that the shrimp were caught in the open ocean with trawlers; “farm raised” means exactly that; raised in a pond or controlled waters with chemicals and when the shrimp reach selling size they are starved at their last moments to eliminate a vein (or digestive tract). Farm-raised shrimp are uniform in size and have little if any vein showing. Wild shrimp are usually graded to match in size, but are not perfectly sized and the veins vary by the shrimp; some are full of vein and some have little vein. One more choice to consider when buying shrimp is whether they are “foreign” or “domestic.” “Domestic” means U.S.A.; “foreign” means everywhere else. Unless you know each country’s sanitation laws and practices you’re better off sticking with wild-caught, domestic shrimp. Tidbit: only 3 percent of all restaurants use wild-caught, domestic shrimp.

Scallops
There are just as many rumors floating around about scallops as there are about oysters. “Are your scallops real, or are they cut from a stingray?” I’ve been asked that numerous times. Another one is, “Are they cut from shark steaks with a small cookie cutter?” I have wholesaled thousands of pounds of scallops and cooked thousands of pounds of scallops and I have never seen anything to back up these rumors. One way a buyer can tell if it is a real scallop is to look at its side for a little muscle that is rectangular in shape and feels a little tougher than the scallop itself. Sometime they are not there (they fall off or are picked off because of its chewyness). This muscle is used by the scallop to open and close its shell thus proving its title of a scallop. Besides, it would probably cost about the same amount of money to fake a scallop as it would be just to buy them. There are two main varieties of scallops that are served in restaurants: bay scallops and sea scallops. There are also calico scallops and other varieties, but we will stick with bay and sea. Bay scallops are small and caught in the shallow waters of the bay. They are sweeter than sea scallops, but they tend to be rubbery in my opinion. Sea scallops are dredged from the ocean floor and are much bigger and have a meaty texture to them and also are sweet tasting. All scallops are process two ways; wet or dry. West scallops basically means that scallops have been soaked in a preservative until 25 percent of the scallop is a preservative. These scallops are often what is the norm in most restaurants, and also the norm in seafood retail shops because they’re cheaper. You buy these scallops and you take them home, season them just right, and put them in your pan, and a few minutes later your scallops have shrunk to half their original size and you have a milky, soupy mess in your pan. That soupy mess is the 25-percent preservative cooking out and taking the flavor of the scallop and your seasoning along with it. Dry scallops are the way to go. “Dry” means no preservatives. The are shucked and put into the bucket to be sized and sold. They actually plump up when cooked correctly, and they smell bad. They don’t smell bad as in rotten, but smell bad as a scallop. In the case of seafood, bad is good and good is bad. If it has no smell it is probably masked by a preservative. There is an old saying that goes, “If it smells like fish, treat it like a dish; if it smells like cologne, leave it alone.” Once you have had a true dry scallop, you'll taste the difference and will not go back to the wet scallops. When ordering out ask the restaurant or seafood retailer if they are wet or dry scallops. If they don’t know what you’re talking about then they are wet scallops.

Oysters
Everyone knows the old wives’ tale about oysters; the one about ‘you can only eat oysters caught in the months with the letter 'r' in them. We see the gentleman looking at the menu and when he comes to the oysters you can almost see him counting the months in his head. In today’s world of refrigeration and refrigerated trucks oysters can be eaten every month of the year. Some say they taste different in the summer months while they are spawning, but I can’t tell the difference in taste, only the difference in appearance; they are milky looking in summer. Other than that, quit counting the months on your fingers and enjoy your oysters whenever. Ours come from the Apalachicola Bay; they are plump, juicy, and bring with them a distinctive briny, metallic flavor that only an oyster can do.

Crabmeat
The crabmeat we use in Miss Meg’s is from the blue crab. It's packed in 1-pound cans and, unfortunately, almost all is imported. The foreign market can sell a pound of crabmeat at retail price cheaper than what the U.S. market can make it. If crabmeat from the U.S. were available we would certainly use it at Miss Meg’s, even if it were more expensive, but the imported crabmeat has pretty much wiped out all of the packing houses in the U.S. If there are any left in the U.S. they are small operations on the coast and only service their local area, but I haven’t heard of any and I have looked for them. So I buy imported crab that has the closest flavor to what our own blue crabs taste like. The different varieties of crabmeat can be overwhelming. We will break it down for you. There is jumbo lump meat, lump meat, backfin meat, special meat, and claw meat. Jumbo lump is very expensive; usually $25 a pound, wholesale. The reason for this is that there are only two pieces of lump meat per crab. It’s located in the hind corner on each side of the crab. Lump meat is located in the body of the crab and is snow white in color; it is large and of meaty chunks, about half the size of the jumbo lump meat. Backfin meat is basically smaller pieces of lump meat. It’s a little darker then jumbo lump meat and lump meat, but has the same sweet flavor. Special crab meat is basically broken-up pieces of the lump and backfin; it’s the white meat that isn’t big enough to make the lump or backfin grade. Finally, claw meat describes itself; it’s the meat from the claws. It has a lot of crab flavor and the meat is darker. We use lump meat and claw meat at Miss Meg’s. I like to mix the sweetness and size of the lump meat with the bold crab flavors of the claw meat. When we make our crab cakes--they are crab cakes, not breadcrumb cakes. We use spices and, instead of greasy mayonnaise, we reduce heavy cream until it’s thick and we use that as our binder. We use some breadcrumbs, but only enough ingredients to hold the crabmeat together. We want you to taste the crab and we want it to be the best.