I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I love Jacques' columns.

"Their chocolate sundae could make you weep."

The man is a poet. A true, living Baltimore asset.

The "institutional memory" in Kelly, Rasmussen, Large, and Kasper are the last great treasures of The Baltimore Sun.

May they continue to thrive.

Baltimore wasn't always know for crabs, as a matter of fact thats pretty much a recent thing, it was know for a very long time for something else, terrapin soup. before the great fire of 1904 there was a world renouned hotel famous for it's terrapin soup, I cant remember the name of the place and i'm too tired to look it up!

barkeep77:
Are you thinking of the Rennert? That was one of Mencken's haunts.

And you're right:
Baltimore (and the whole Chesapeake Bay area) was also more widely and well known for its oysters. The Baltimore canning and tinning industry puts tons and tons of them up so they could be shipped. When the Civil War was fought around here, many soldiers from other states wrote home about the oysters. Bay pirates fought over them.

The crab was the "poor man's lobster."

Marconi's gave me my introduction to sweetbreads. I remember two versions--the Bordelais and the Sarah Bernhardt--but not a third. (I'm also not sure whether Marconi's sweetbreads were thymus or pancreas.)

CMAC - Ugh. Do you have to use the medical term of a body part. Things taste so much better when using a foreign word or a more delicate term. I'm more likely to eat escargots than snails. Sweetbreads just sound better.

I make it a point to read Jacques Kelly's column every week; he and Fred Rasmussen ARE Baltimore's memory. Was Fred born in a desk drawer at The Sun? He was writing obits when I worked there 40+ years ago. Could he be the latest incarnation of Dorian Gray?

Dottie
Agreed on on JK and FR seems like I remember FR way back in the old sepia tone magazine insert,,,along with AB photo's///"when to the session....."