BUYING SHELLFISH

You can buy shellfish in many forms and varieties. You can find it live, cooked, partially prepared, frozen, canned and blister packed.

When you are shopping for live shellfish, it is often hard to tell what is fresh and what is not.

To select the best oysters and clams possible, you need to try to find them live. To determine if they are alive they should close their shells tightly when you tap on them.

When looking at crabs or lobsters, you want to look for critters that move all of their claws and legs.

Shrimp will pretty much always be fresh or frozen; you most likely will not find it “live” anywhere except a bait shop. For shrimp you just want to look for evenly colored shrimp that does not exhibit a “fishy” smell.