Catching the History of Key West

At the Eaton Street Seafood Market in the historic district of Key West, Fla., a long glass case displayed a who’s who of the city’s seafood scene: plump piles of pinks (the local shrimp) snuggled next to a yellowtail snapper, a mound of stone crab claws and fresh slabs of grouper. I’d come to eat my way through Key West’s delicacies, and here was my map.

But I wasn’t there just to taste. I was there to learn, to unravel a bit of the city’s history, culture and lore, using the local seafood as my guide. Good eats, with a window into the city’s past and present.

My first lesson, it turned out, would prove to be the most important. “I’m the only surviving specimen,” said Harvey Watkins, Eaton Street’s stone crab supplier, as we stood in the quiet little market, the crash and thrum of nearby Duval Street seemingly miles away. “I’m the last commercial fisherman in the old Key West harbor.”

It’s a story that Eaton Street Market’s owners, Andrea Morgan and Sean Seaman, know well — and the reason they opened their shop last year. They want to sell fresh seafood caught by local fisherman, and buck the import trend they say is killing the local fishing industry. They also want to ensure that their customers get the real deal.

“Tourists come through and say, ‘Well, I can buy grouper in Chicago,’ ” Mr. Seaman said, shaking his head. “No, you can’t. It’s probably something else.”

For travelers looking to soak up some sunshine and sample the local bounty, a bag of stone crab claws from Eaton Street could well be Shangri-La. “People come in and want to go to Mallory Square or Fort Zach and have a picnic,” Mr. Seaman said as he cracked open a crab and handed me the “lollipop,” the lump claw meat.

Dipped in a housemade mustard sauce, the result was delicious — rich and meaty, like Alaskan king crab, but with more give. Starting at around $14 a pound, the claws are expensive, but buying them to go at Eaton Street costs less than half of what you’d pay in a sit-down restaurant.

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