User:Cullen328/sandbox/JoesStoneCrab







History
Joe and Jenny Weiss were Jewish immigrants from Hungary who initially settled in New York, where their son Jesse was born in 1907. Joe worked in a restaurant in the Bronx where he learned the recipes for several dishes that he later offered in Miami Beach. Joe had asthma and borrowed against a life insurance policy to travel to Miami Beach in 1913, where he found relief from his symptoms. His wife and son soon followed to Miami Beach. Initially, the couple operated a seafood service concession at Smith's Bathing Casino, and in 1918, they purchased a small house across the street, and established Joe's Diner in 1920. This was the beginning of the restaurant business in Miami Beach, which was not yet a city.

Many accounts describe a visit to the Weiss's restaurant in the early 1920s, by an icthyologist from Harvard University, who suggested that they consider serving stone crabs as a dish. One source mentions George Howard Parker as that scientist. He was a zoologist who studied crustaceans extensively, especially their perception. When they added that dish to the menu, business grew, along with the influx of more tourists.

Abstract: "Selling the Storied Stone Crab" examines the intersection between eating and the environment in South Florida using the stone crab, a highly-prized local delicacy, and the world-renowned restaurant that purportedly first began serving them, Joe's Stone Crab, as lenses through which to analyze regional identity, conceptions of place, and the social, cultural, generational and class distinctions that have arisen through consuming the crustacean over the twentieth-century. The work is both an institutional and corporate history of Joe's Stone Crab and an environmental and cultural history of the stone crab. In an area defined by striking transience, tourism, and massive growth, the essay argues that people envisioned themselves becoming indigenous to South Florida's unique natural and cultural landscape through the ingestion of a food that they believed could only be attained in the region. But the common perception that most gourmands hold--that the stone crab can only be procured in South Florida--is in itself a myth. The stone crab can be purchased worldwide, it is not strictly indigenous to South Florida, nor did Joe's Stone Crab first serve the decapod. Nevertheless, "Selling the Storied Stone Crab" concludes that these points are inconsequential for most visitors and residents who continue to relish both the crustacean's sweet meat and the myths that surround its eating.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2006.6.4.32?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

History, https://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/joes-stone-crab-closes-in-on-a-century-of-serving-floridas-famed-seafood/2156591

History, celebrities http://miami-history.com/historical-perspective-joes-stone-crab/

Death of Jesse Weiss http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1994-08-21/news/9408200822_1_crabs-joe-al-capone

James Bond, celebrities

Celebrity diners

Family history

Staff longevity, celebrities

Staff longevity, celebrities, book

Staff attire, longevity, menu

Annual sales - all four

Menu

Menu, philosophy

Menu, wines, service, good quote

Fishery, crab cooking, number of seats

Menu, service

Red tide effects on stone crab

1980 family history, crab preparation perfected, scale of fishing operation