Smith Island Crab to Cake Heritage Tasting Adventure
Contact us directly if you’d like to book alternative dates with your friends: (410) 443-0025
3 days/ 2 nights all inclusive: Maryland blue crab heaven within an island of waterman and their families. Lodging, meals, tastings, hands-on demos and talks, bikes and boat transportation included. We’re officially recognized and certified as one of only forty “Chesapeake Bay Storytellers” through the National Park Service and The Maryland Office of Tourism.
Unplug. Escape. Taste a place where we’ve been cooking for three hundred years with nature’s bounty. Step into our disappearing environment where wind, tides and weather rule. If you love exploring places that are rough around the edges and a lifestyle that is unapologetically unique - well, then jump right in with us - for a once in a lifetime heritage foodway tasting tour!
Authentic tide to table - no pretense, no nonsense, just real people from the original source of Maryland’s beloved seafood legacy. Eating everything crab: learn various ways to pick fresh meat, sample mainland and island soft shells, test various crab cake styles/recipes, and slurp up different soups! We’ll also nibble on and discuss the original layer cakes that have become world famous.
Your journey begins at a historic dock on the Eastern Shore of Maryland for a boat to carry you into another world. We’ll cross almost an hour into the Chesapeake Bay to our vanishing island home. You’ll be enveloped within the environment of explorers, revolutionaries, homesteaders and waterman. We’re a community in which water continually seizes and releases our livelihoods; A fluid, flexible, tenacious and generous people with a unique lifestyle and language.
These are small batch 4 - 6 people experiences that provide more personal interactions that cater towards solo travelers. Created for mature adults (over 25) and require curiosity, kindness and flexibility as we are dancing with nature on each adventure. Contact us directly with questions, or if you’d like to book with your friends: (410) 443-0025
This inclusive experience is curated exclusively for you by us (eastern shore & island natives): Meals revolve around Maryland Blue Crab.
Day 1 - Boat/Smith Island: Ride the waves 45 minutes out through the Chesapeake Bay towards our new island homestay & our first fresh crab inspired lunch. Check out your new digs before we orient ourselves by bike in town and learn more about island life and the surrounding environment from our native hosts. Dinner tasting examines the history and myriad of flavors and considerations of fresh island crab cakes while watching the sunset over the water with 360 degree view of the bay.
Day 2 - Smith Island: Fresh crab inspired breakfast; & then journey to begin your morning with island coffee roasting and tasting. -Lunchtime soft-shells highlight the afternoon and the visit to native watermen family shanties prior to our local island style crab picking lessons to help extract tasty nuggets for your very own crab cake making session. - Dinner is your very own created crab cakes eaten after your leisurely exploration of the island or chill session on the front porch following awaiting the sunset. Evening is spent sampling the islands world famous layer cakes while relaxing within your unplugged, remote and poetically beautiful, gritty paradise.
Day 3 - Smith Island/Boat: Today we glide across the water to observe the other town and mini islands filled with fascinating migratory birds, lunch on more island family crab based recipes and kayak or fish while experiencing as much as possible within this amazing, disappearing environment before we journey back to the mainland.
Video from our friend Tom Horton: Smith Island - An Island Out of Time
COVID 19 UPDATE: We respect the guidelines of federal, state and local agencies.
WE ALSO RESPECT YOUR RIGHT to choose being, or not being, vaccinated for COVID19. This is an outdoor based experience, and when not using screened porches for meals, most inside areas have widows. Please remember we cannot control our partners and other guests healthcare decisions, or force them to wear masks. By you purchasing a travel/tour product from Matchcoat Sojourner you understand and take on the risks associated with traveling and coming into contact with other people who could transmit COVID19.