A visit to South Carolina’s Lowcountry means more than Palmetto trees and pralines. I should know, after spending the weekends as a grad student driving from one end of the state to the coast for one reason alone: the food. The region’s restaurants serve the best briny oysters, bowls of freshly caught shrimp nestled on top of bowls of creamy grits, and, my favorite, she-crab soup.
But I shouldn’t have to wait for a trip to South Carolina to serve this seafood stew, and neither should you. Here’s how to make the Lowcountry classic in your own kitchen.
Where Did She-crab Soup Originate?
This creamy crab chowder is a specialty of Charleston. Scottish settlers brought partan bree, a traditional rice-and-crab bisque, with them when they emigrated in the 1700s. William Deas, chef and butler to Charleston’s mayor in the early 1900s, is credited with adding the red-orange roe to the now-famous soup.
