Have you ever tried to catch a chicken? Most of my formative years were spent on five acres in rural Idaho. I didn’t live on a farm, but we did have cows, chickens, turkeys and horses. We used the horses for riding, cows and turkeys for food, and chickens for eggs. It was casual farming for the purpose of a bit of home grown meat, and probably to inflect a bit of torture on me (have you ever unloaded a tractor-trailer of hay in 100 degree heat?).

One thing that we struggled with for years was caging our chickens. Now its trendy to have free range chickens, where they are walking around, catching worms and and just blowing off some chicken stress. But in practice, it sucks. Because this is how chickens think:

“Hey… thats a beautiful garden you have there… would be a shame if someone dug it up.”

And there is poop everywhere. Everywhere. You know that feeling when you smell poop, and realize that there is dog poop on your shoe? Well, chicken poop is much smaller and more frequent. That would happen to me all the time.

But the worst incident was when my 75 year old grandmother came out to see us. It was early in the morning, I was inside eating my breakfast and my grandma was in our backyard, walking around and enjoying the tranquility. Then, our rooster (who was on the lamb) came shooting across the yard in a dead sprint at my grandma. When a bird with huge claws runs at you with murder in its eyes, its in your best interest to just get out of there. The image of my grandma running across the yard with a rooster bearing down on her is seared into my memory (and I would never laugh at such a serious situation).

The point is that we made a point of keeping the chickens cooped up. They were escape artists that would find ways to fly over the fence, dig under, or find any door left open. The battle involved clipping wings, multiple fence patches, and a nearly two person level of physical security.

But every time that chickens got out, we had to go catch them. And chickens have all of the attributes you would want in an NFL running back: they are very fast, have great acceleration, and have amazing agility. They can be running, and change direction just by planting their foot and turning. The only way to catch them is to corner them with multiple people, and even then, they could run past you.

I tell this story because there are people out there that chase chickens for fun. And they are those crazy Cajuns do that on purpose once a year for Mardi Gras. Sure, the Mardi Gras that we think of in New Orleans involves beads, jazz, parades, drinking and lots of partying. But rural Cajuns consider the actions of such city folk to be ridiculous.

Mardi Gras celebrations in rural Acadiana (Louisiana) are distinct from the more widely known celebrations in New Orleans and other metropolitan areas. A group of people, usually on horseback and wearing capuchons (a cone-shaped ceremonial hat) and traditional costumes, approach a farmhouse and ask for something for the community gumbo pot. Often, the farmer or his wife allows the riders to have a chicken, if they can catch it. The group then puts on a show, comically attempting to catch the chicken set out in a large open area. Songs are sung, jokes are told, and skits are acted out. When the chicken is caught, it is added to the pot at the end of the day. [source]

Now you might be thinking, “Brian, Cajun is not international! Your job is to eat international food and write about it. You have one job!” And this is true. But to explain why Ethel’s Creole Kitchen in Mount Washington fits the bill, we have to go back in history a bit.

Everyone was moving across the pond during the 1700’s, and the French and English were fighting over the area that is currently French Canada, and they kicked all of the French out. Many of them ended up settling in Louisiana in the swamps. These were the Cajuns.

The Creoles were a set of people, mainly from France, that wanted to identify themselves as different from the others that were moving in, especially as America was forming and bought their land. But basically they were just a bunch of Southern Louisianians that started calling themselves Creoles.

But the best description of the differences is that Cajuns are rural folk, and Creoles are more sophisticated city folk.

Thats a naked, softshell crab, with an avalance of tomato, corn and bacon on it

So when I was looking at the menu for Ethel’s Creole Kitchen, I was seeing a mix of the two things. Maryland is famous for blue shell crab, but I have never had soft shell crab. Crabs lose their shells once a year, and become completely edible for a couple months as long as they stay out of the water. Ethels took this amazing bit of meat, seasoned it up and then put bacon, tomato, and corn all over it. I love blue crab, but there is nothing like having it without all of the picking!

I almost didn’t try the softshell crab because it seemed like a Maryland dish, and I wanted something more Cajun/Creole. But it turns out that we have a bit more in common than I thought.

Its a really odd experience to pull a crab leg off, and just eat the whole thing. The skin ends up being a crispy, almost fried type of consistency. Inside was still the crab meat that I was expecting, but the crunch makes for a much different experience. With the whole thing coated in bacon, and diced tomatoes, it felt very un-Maryland because of the lack of Old Bay. Its possible that I didn’t even know what crab tasted like without it!

Maureen went with the Creole Shrimp Boat, which is sauteed shrimp, mussels, jumbo lump crab meat, and fish du jour in some amazing roasted red pepper sauce. It was the kind of sauce where it seemed spicy, but then you realize that its just very spiced, and not necessarily “hot” spicy. This is a quintessential creole/cajun dish, because it has lots of seafood, rice, and lots of spices.

This could be considered a Creole version of jambalaya, because it was seasoned rice, with various sea foods on top of it. They did have jambalaya on the menu as well, but this version just was much heavier on the sea food, and lighter on the rice. The spice was what made the whole dish.

Mount Washington

I don’t know what you expected Baltimore City to look like.

Beyond the food being absolutely out of this world, Mount Washington is really a Baltimore City gem. Like Roland Park, its spitting distance from being part of the County, which makes it an area where people pay Baltimore City taxes, while basically living the Baltimore County life. After getting off the I-83, we spent a few miles driving through wide neighborhood roads, with huge houses on each side, with huge yards. Its one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city, (tied for seventh in median house price).

Lightly used on the weekend, but would make for a good weekday park and ride. Or for city dwellers to visit.

Mount Washington also features a light rail stop right next to it main street. While we took the opportunity to ride the motorcycle on a nice summer evening, the train would have been a good option as well. Having a light rail station is the embodyment of everything Canton feared with the red line, as it offers the perfect opportunity for inner city folk to come up, steal a television set, and get back into the city.

Getting a couple drinks before heading across the street for dinner

The light rail is right next to Mount Washington’s main street, which features a French and Japanese restaurant (which will be features in future Baltimore Around the World entries), as well as the Mount Washington Tavern, with one of the better outdoor seating areas I have seen in the area. Clayworks is right around the corner (they recently declared bankruptcy, but who knows if they could come back), and the whole area is really cozy. The area butts up to I-83, but the traffic noise isn’t terribly noticeable.

The one thing that confused me was that the Mount Washington that I knew was along Falls Rd, including the Whole Foods area, and Lake Ave. The tragic truth is that they used to be much more connected before I-83 cut through the middle and orphaned the two sides. Unfortunately, this is a microcosm of what I-83 did to Baltimore City when it was built in the 50’s and ‘60’s. Closer to Downtown, I-83 is the line between the thriving downtown, and the blighted Greenmont area. In fact, St Paul Street and Greenmont St are almost equadistant from I-83 on opposite sides; St Paul is thriving, and Greenmont is not.

Mount Washington does not suffer quite the same fate, but an area that should be a thriving main street, adjacent to the Jones Falls, is instead sold short. A main street that could compete with Fells Point or Hampden was unfortunately traded for an expressway. Despite this, its able to act as a cozy little Baltimore gem.

We will return to Mount Washington for some of the other restaurants here, and maybe even for more of Ethel’s.