Calabash

It’s said that a whiff of or a taste of food can bring back memories. That was certainly the case this summer, when I ventured to Calabash, North Carolina, for the first time in decades.

When I was in college, weekends were spent in North Myrtle Beach, aka Ocean Drive. It was the Fort Lauderdale of the Carolinas. As poor college students we usually budgeted $10 for Saturday night (this was an era where you’d pack 30 people into a motel room to save money). Some of us would stay put in OD and drink that money away, while another contingent would head over the border and have dinner in Calabash, a small fishing town in North Carolina that dates to the late 1600s and has grown to become regarded as the “Seafood Capital of the World.” During the ’40s it was customary for boats to pull in with catches that were so large that they provided the makings for impromptu oyster roasts and fish fries.

Word spread about the delicious seafood Lucy Coleman made. She called a light coating of cornmeal and a quick fry in evaporated milk “Calabash-style” cooking. Lucy’s seafood was in such demand that she opened an open-air pavilion that she called “The Original.” Other quaint eateries followed, including one operated by Ruth Beck.

We loved Calabash. It became a mecca for college students in the ’60s and ’70, since you could eat cheap, drink some beer (or maybe white lightning) and meet students from all over the region on the docks. The food was amazing, and the atmosphere was definitely down-home. Through the years, I often wondered if that tradition survived. (I even named one of my dogs Calabash.) My son, who now lives in North Carolina, verified it had; he called one day to rave about a restaurant they had visited in a place called Calabash.

I spent Fourth of July week with them this year and one day we ventured to Calabash, which is now home to 30+ restaurants, including Beck’s, which is still family-owned. We managed to snag a table at Beck’s before the dinner crowd descended. The memories of weekends in OD came flooding back. I went for it and ordered the Deluxe Seafood Platter that consisted of flounder, shrimp, oysters, scallops and deviled crab cooked Calabash-style. Oh, my, gosh! We also ate our way through two baskets of the best hush puppies I’ve had in a long time.

Thanks for the memories.