When I was a kid (or at least a younger kid than now), I had an uncle who had ran some crab traps, and once in a while I'd go with him to empty and rebait the traps. Getting back to shore and dumping live crabs straight into boiling water was about as fresh as crab meat gets, and it was absolutely wonderful.
I also recall fishing all day with my dad on the St John's in Jacksonville. At the end of the day, we'd tie up on my grandparents' dock and start cleaning fish while the family gathered, aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. The fish, croakers and drum and sheepshead and maybe a few reds and sometimes a flounder or two, would go straight from cleaning into cornmeal batter and into the fryer. Coleslaw and potato salad and corn on the cob and hushpuppies, and I'd eat myself into a stupor, already exhausted and sunburned from being on the water all day.
Sigh.
Seafood is still good, but it's never been that good ever since.
