Gettin' hooked by fishy tales
Mr. Stephan Henderson
Owner, The Seafood Kitchen
Hampton, Virginia

As in most seaside towns, we walked around Hampton in pursuit of finding the best fish and chips. David dropped by The Seafood Kitchen and met Steve and his kitchen staff. As with all his customers, Steve greeted David as he walked through the door like an old friend and told him a few good stories. Like a fish, David was hooked. Here's a few of Steve's best.

Tell us how you ended up living in Hampton.

My family was in the military and I was born in California. I lived in Japan and in the Caribbean. When I was 14 years old, Hampton, Virginia was the first place where my family lived in the United States. So I consider this my home. After I returned from the Army and traveled, I settled down here.

Has fishing changed here in Hampton since you were a boy?

When I was 14 years old, my grandfather bought me a boat. I loved to fish because I grew up in the Caribbean and we fished all the time and that was part of my coming up. There's a place called Grandview and it's north of here. You get out in the boat and you let it drift all the way down past Fort Monroe and you drift in. And you'd catch flounder. You'd only have to do that on one tide and you'd fill the boat up with flounder. Big flounder called doormat flounder ('cause they were the size of doormats). And you didn't go back because you didn't need anymore fish. You got tired of pulling them in. Well, now that I'm almost 60 years old, I went fishin' with my son and we caught 2 flounder in the same drift and we had to throw them back in because they were too small.We didn't get enough to eat.

When I was a boy, you fed yourself and if you cleaned them, you gave them away to your neighours. Your neighbours wouldn't take fish if they weren't clean because fish were so plentiful. The Bay was just so alive. You'd find oysters and clams just about anywhere. And now, you can't eat the oysters and clams because of the hydrocarbon pollution. That's kind of sad. My children don't get the same joy of reaping the benefit of the ocean like I did when I was a boy.

Did you ever fish offshore?

I fished off the Georges' Banks for 2 years, after I came back from the Army. It was an adventure and I enjoyed that. Let me tell you, the storms were so bad off the Georges' Banks that I lied to God 4 times. Huge storms would come up and you know the boat's goin' to sink and you'd say, "Dear God I promise you I'll never go out again if I get back to shore" and I'd tell God that lie about 4 times.

Finally the adventure was over but it's beautiful out there on the Georges' Banks. It's like bein' on another planet.

But when the storms come up…There's no doubt in your mind there's a God in the world because nature just couldn't make storms that big. The boat comes too like this (arm up in the air) the boat sits there and hangs and when the boat goes back down, you wonder whether you goin' under or not. But the boat is safe because it's sealed. You won't sink but it was scary. The waves were 70 feet.

Did your family have a crab factory?

No, I had the crab factory. It was at the foot of Queen Street bridge which is gone now. Pasture Point. I had 200 people workin' at the factory but my factory was a little different. I only had 50 seats in the factory - you count the number of seats for people to sit in and I ran my factory 24 hours a day. It was the best business I ever owned. I ran it for 2 years. But, the city decided they wanted to build something else there, so they condemned it and tore it down. Actually it was the city property to begin with. We were renting it from the city. It wasn't like they took anything away from me. Except a good business…that employed maybe about 200 unemployable people.

My factory was small and lots of time, I kept crabs there where a lot the factories would clean them all at the one time and then it was overwith. But I had a continual crab thing. I was a small house compared to all the others.

Years ago, there were fish houses and crab factories from the foot of the Queen Street bridge all the way to the Yacht club - that's quite a ways - and one by one they folded as the crabs became scarce and the city wanted to make it different. The town was no longer referred to as Crab town as the crabs died out.

Years ago, on my mother's dock, in 1 tide I could catch 2 bushels of crabs with just a string and chicken necks - which was what used to be a big sport here and it fed a lot of families. Now I took my kids there 2 or 3 summers ago and in 1 tide we got maybe a dozen crabs. They were edible but the fun of constantly pulling in the crabs wasn't there. The Bay was just so alive years ago.

When we lost the oysters the filtration of the Bay changed. There were so many bi-valves in the Bay other than oysters and they would all help filter the Bay - I heard estimates of the Bay being filtered twice a day or every 4 days. I don't know exactly. But all that's gone now that the oysters are gone.

What happened to all the old oyster shells?

The oyster shell was never wasted. It was valuable. On all the old roads, they used the oyster shells as the bed, so the more traffic went over it, the harder it became. It makes a fine road. There's a road right here in town called Shell Road between Hampton and Newport News and it was all oyster shells and that's why they called it Shell Road. It was a really good road but now it's fallen into disrepair.

Mr. Darling had an oyster pile three stories high where the parking garage is now, just by the water where you have your boat. They would put those oyster shells back in the beds for the spats (that's the beginning life of the oysters) and they would adhere to the shells to get the calcium or whatever chemical from the shell they needed (I'm not exactly sure).
Oysters used to be so big - bigger than your hand and you'd only need to eat 3 or 4 and you'd be full. As a matter of fact, it was what poor people would eat. A real good dinner was Milk Stew - you take oysters, milk, butter and maybe a little bit of salt and you'd heat that would be real cheap was Milk Stew. You take oysters, milk, butter and maybe a bit of salt and heat it up. That was a real good meal. Even today my family eats that as a New Year's tradition.

When's the best time to eat crab?

Traditionally, they dredge for crab in the winter to keep the crab houses going in the wintertime. But the Fall is the best time to get crabs because they're fat, ready to go underneath the mud and hibernate. They're full of oil.

I had a woman one time in the crab house and she couldn't pick a crab to save her life. She'd pick maybe 10 lbs of crab in a day but she had to feed a family. (I had 1 woman who could pick 100 lbs a day, but that was unusual). So I put her on a table to go through the crabmeat to pick out the bones and little pieces of shell. She had hands like mine (rough and chafed) when she started and when she got through, her hands were like a young girls because the oil in the crabmeat was so fine. She did it for 5 or 6 hours a day, so it took care of her hands.

Are there any superstitions about being on or around boats?

Yeah and I'm not sure where they came from.
Don't start a trip on a Friday
Don't have a woman on a boat - distracts the men from their work, I guess.
Don't have a Priest on your boat - unlucky all way round! They bury and marry and come to your house and eat your chicken.
Don't carry a black suitcase onboard.
Don't sit or stand on a hatch cover - probably 'cause you'd crack it.
Don't whistle or say the word PIG.

On your menu at The Seafood Kitchen you have hush puppies. What are they?

Years ago when women would follow the men who were working in fishing camps, the women were the cooks and would be cookin' catfish in the camps. Dogs followed the camps everywhere and they would always be barkin' or howlin'. The women would fry the catfish in batter and to keep the dogs quiet, they would throw balls of fried batter to the dogs and say "hush puppies!" Now-a-days, hush puppies are fried battered balls of bread.