Norfolk=Butter

     Jane & Michael Stern communicate to America about their cross-country food adventures on their weekly NPR program, "The Splendid Table."  They also employ the printed word with a publication entitled "The Lexicon of Real American Food."  It's been an easy read for me.  I'm enjoying their assessment of food around this great country of ours.  So for the next several days I will highlight some excerpts from their book.

     Norfolk, Virginia is located in the Tidewater area of that state.  Seafood is plentiful and on the menu of practically every restaurant there.  Reading down the list of delicious items there is a lot from which to choose.  But each one, whether it be crabs, oysters or scallops,  has the identical suffix, "Norfolk."  To the uninitiated that is code for butter.  When your meal arrives at the table expect to find  it swimming in the butter in which it has been sauteed.  There may be a dash of lemon and a bit of spice, but nothing more than that.  The only possible improvement on this bliss is when the crab is joined in its saute pan by nuggets of Virginia ham.