Justin Brandon, John Shields, Steve discussed on Morning Edition

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Thank you. Steve. Justin Brandon chairs New York City's Committee on resiliency and If you know Marilyn food, you know the crab cake soft Patties made of fresh lump crab meat, But the main ingredient blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay have been harder to come by this summer. The price went crazy, You know, like crazy high and for most people that would like to have a bunch of people over and make crab kicks or something. They probably would have to take a second mortgage to do that. John Shields would know. He's the owner of Gertrude's restaurant at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the author of Multiple cookbooks on Chesapeake Bay Cooking. This has honestly been one of the toughest years ever for crab meat. A labor shortage and low supply drove crab prices up so much this summer that some Maryland restaurants had to take it off the menu. Shields is still offering his classic crab cakes at Gertrude's. But for the budget minded and food curious, he has cooked up another option. I think I got a pound of tofu. It was organic tofu, and I thought, Well, what about if I took the toe, Phil? And put it into pieces that were similar to like crab mean. A new special combines local extra firm tofu with lump crab meat in a cake called the Crab Fuel ish isse fuel Delicious dishes. Okay, go on. The 50 50 split between tofu and crab makes it much cheaper than the traditional crab cake. If you're a crab purist, let the man explain himself were traditionalist here in the Chesapeake region. I mean, really traditionalist. So you have to be careful. You know, this could be deemed sacrilege is what I'm talking about here. But I think you know people could be a little adventurous, A little playful. You know, these are the kinds of things that actually could be done to see how we can still use crab meat, But we don't overuse it and we can keep it at a price point. Shields tells us feeding more people with less is something Chesapeake Bay home cooks have done for generations. Take the traditional Maryland crab soup, which combines crabmeat with cheaper ingredients like vegetables and barley. Yeah, so it's just like that. Just try it. Just try it and see what you think. If you don't like it fine, But.

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