Bananas!: Memorial Day on Tangier Island

I am getting married in November, and my fiance is from Tangier, Virginia. Tangier, Virginia is an island located in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. John Smith discovered it in 1608. People settled the island in 1686, and my fiance's family has been there since the 1800s. Most of the men that work and still live on Tangier work on the water as waterman catching crabs, oysters, clams, and fish.

Blue crab in a crab pot, which is what they use to catch the crabs.

This trip I went with a friend, and we ate lunch at the dock. One of their specials for the day was the soft crab sandwich with coleslaw:

Served on two slices of white bread.

They cut off the mouth and eyes, take the top shell off, and scoop out the guts before cooking them, so all you are eating is meat and fried soft shell. I like to add a little ketchup to mine, which is not pictured here.

There is a process for catching and keeping the soft crabs that I won't go into detail in this post, but I also was able to get some frozen soft crabs to cook later :). I was also able to get a pound of pure crab meat, which will be used for some delicious things as well.

We also went for the Memorial Day service they hold every year at 2pm on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Current and past members of the military from Tangier wear their uniforms, and two people read the names of the all of the people from Tangier who died in a war or who served in a war and have since died.