A dish beyond sustainable, it's enduring

With all the attention being paid to seafood and how so much is being overfished it seems fitting to note the one remarkable exception.

Essentially, you must kill whatever you catch to eat it, even the lowly oyster dies as you bite down on it.

Enter the Stone Crab

Found all along the Eastern Seaboard, it is especially plentiful in Florida.

As a matter of fact at Joe's Stone Crab in Miami Beach it is the specialty of the house for close to 80 years.  2013 Restaurant Business magazine sites it as being the second highest  grossing restaurant in the United States ($35mm), pretty good for a place who's bread and butter is only available from November to May.  They  even have their  own fishing fleet to keep the restaurant in a fresh supply.

Here is what makes the Stone Crab so amazing.  When you catch it (has to be legal size of at least 5 1/2 inches) you simply break off the left claw and throw the crab back in the ocean!

A new claw grows back by the next season. So you actually have a growing supply, not a declining one.

If you'd like to try them you can order from Joe's on line.