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Q: I'm new to Louisiana. How do you boil crabs and for how long? Do they have to be alive or can you put them in the refrigator and keep them for a while before using them? How do you pick a crab? What part do you eat and what part do you discard? How long do you boil them? What kind of seasoning do you use? --BlueBayou

A: Those of you from the Chesapeake Bay area (I'm talking to YOU, BigCrab), for whom steaming is the only method to cook crabs might want to just skip to the next question. The following is taken from my "Short Orders" column titled "Let's Get Crabby."

For those who think crabs exist only on the Pacific or Atlantic coasts (are you listening, Alton Brown?), the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico will provide a surprise in the sweetest, most reasonably priced crabby goodness around. I call it good seafood without the attitude.

For those of you who have never partaken of the Mighty Blue, let me give you the basics. According to Howard, of Howard's Seafood, scion of all things shellfishy along the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas, blue crabs can be had year-round, with the prime time being February through May in the warm-water areas. The minimum good eating size is 5 inches across the shell from horn to horn. The claw meat is tasty and easy to get at, but the true gold is the body meat, which is best retrieved with a metal pick or scooper. Dipped in clarified butter, it's some of the best seafood you'll ever have the pleasure of devouring.

Seafood lovers are split into two camps as to the best way to cook these critters. My friends up in Baltimore, where the Chesapeake Bay supplies bountiful blue crabs to much of the eastern seaboard, swear that steaming is the only way to cook blues, whereas folks along the Gulf Coast primarily prefer boiling them in a highly spiced pot of water.

For you who'd rather steam: put a rack in the bottom of your pot (preferably a wide stock pot) and pour in two beers and a half-cup of cider vinegar. Toss in your crabs (shelled and cleaned) and your choice of spices. Bring the liquid to a boil, cover the pot and wait 25 minutes or so. You'll have a potful worthy of the finest Baltimore crab table.

For the true believers who, like me, appreciate the value of a good boil, mix your water with copious amounts of Zatarain's or other commercial seafood boil seasoning, a half-dozen lemons, halved, a pound of smoked sausage, a fist of garlic and three beers. Taste the water for heat before you cook. If it's too spicy, just pour off some spiced water and add some clean.

Traditionally, red potatoes (whole) and sweet corn go into the pot and cook while everything else is cooking.

Crabs, like all seafood, don't take very long to cook. Normal-sized blues shouldn't require more than about 3 minutes. You'll want a tool called a spider, a circular wire mesh affixed to a wooden handle, to fish out your food. Basically, when it floats, it's done. That applies to crabs, shrimp and crawfish.

Serve on a picnic table covered with newspaper, cups of clarified butter, plenty of beverages, and rolls of paper towels for napkins.

Now, as far as keeping them alive: blue crabs still in the shell should be kept alive. Once you clean them, they should be kept on ice and cooked within 1 hour.

Q: Could you please tell me if a pressure cooker can be used effectively on an electric stove? I have been using pressure cookers off and on ever since I've been cooking. But I have always been fortunate enough to have gas stoves. Now that I live in an apartment that has an electric stove, I have not used my pressure cooker. And frankly, I'm a bit apprehensive. Do you have any suggestions on my dilemma? I will be watching your column for your response.

A: I'm going to be honest here and tell you that pressure cookers scare the heck out of me. They are integral to the creation of many wonderful things, like stock; but there's something about having a device with that much explosively destructive potential squatting in my kitchen that makes me want to go out for dinner.

Of course, I'm also the guy who uses a blowtorch to make spaghetti sauce, so go figure.

In any event, according to the pressure cooker advisors over at MissVickie.com:

When the pressure cooker has reached the desired pressure, remove it from the heat and let the burner cool down for a few minutes. Unless the pot is removed from the heat it will continue to insulate the burner and inhibit its ability to cool on its own. The pot should have no problem maintaining pressure even while off the heat. When the heat has come down, place the cooker back on the low heat to complete the cooking process.
If you have two burners available, turn the second burner on low at the time you begin cooking. Simply move the cooker over onto the second burner once desired pressure has been reached to complete the cooking process.

Make sure you keep your cooker in good repair and test it before every use. A stuck pressure gauge or valve can lead to a spontaneous appliance replacement.

Q: Is there any reason why you have to drain canned beans? To further clarify the question, is there any negative health benefit, does it affect taste, or add calories? --Roseanne V.

A: The main reason to drain (and rinse) canned beans is to remove a lot of the salt used in processing from them. I'm sure there are some small amounts of starch and other compounds in the water (or else it wouldn't be as cloudy as it is), but they are not of a significant enough amount to affect the nutritional breakdown to any great degree.

I got a HUGE response from my answer to a reader's question about cornmeal and cornbread a couple weeks back. In among the mail (some of which threatened me with bodily harm for making sugared cornbread) came a missive from Roger Blair, who does quite possibly the best job of drawing the line between sweet and "regular" cornbread I've ever read. So, with his permission, here's Roger:

As to cornbread, I ate plenty of it during my youth in the mountains of east Tennessee. I've had cornbread both ways (sugared and unsugared), and each way has its place. Sugared cornbread is best made with yellow cornmeal, and baked in a normal baking pan for cutting into squares or wedges (depending on the shape of the pan). It's recommended when portion control is a consideration (since it can be easily cut), and is best served warm with butter. In my experience, it doesn't reheat all that well, and the bottom crust often becomes rubbery during reheating.
Unsugared cornbread is a different animal. It's best made with white cornmeal, and baked in a cast-iron skillet. Like the other, it's best served hot from the pan, with butter. The texture is coarser -- much coarser -- and a bit drier, so it can't be cut easily; it needs to be broken off the pone by hand. (There goes portion control.) However, it tastes quite good the next morning crumbled into a bowl and covered with milk. (Obviously, you eat it like cereal.) Also, it serves well as a base for poultry dressing or stuffing, while the sugared stuff would simply fall apart.

This brings back a memory from childhood, when one of my favorite breakfasts in the universe was my mom's leftover cornbread with roughly 47 spoons of sugar and plenty of milk. Who knew that was an approved method of consumption? Perhaps I'll have to give unsugared cornbread another look.

Got a question for Ask The Cook? A quandary? A poser, even? Drop me a line and we'll find the answers together!