As a boy, native Floridian Michael Anderson loved to sit at the end of the family kitchen table, patiently waiting and watching his grandmother create magic with her cooking. “I would just sit at the edge of the counter and wait for her to get finished cooking so I could eat the food,” reminisces the founder of Chilau Foods, the maker of a flavorful stew base line.
“I didn’t realize how much I was taking in as far as the way she cooked, the type of spices she used, the preparation…I was learning just by sitting and watching.”
The Story of Crab Chilau
One particular dish captivated Anderson the most: crab chilau (pronounced “shilah”), a dish that had a place of honor at every family celebration table (think graduations, weddings, birthdays and more). It is also one whose recipe Anderson’s grandmother, Minnie Hallback, crafted using a special blend of spices for her stew base.
So what is crab chilau? “It’s basically like the gumbo of Tampa,” describes Anderson. “It’s definitely one of those types of recipes where everyone has their own unique spin. But the core of it is a red sauce, it has blue crab in it and it’s served over spaghetti.”
Through the course of his research before launching the Chilau Foods stew base line, the businessman found crab chilau’s history began with the Cuban immigrants who settled in Florida, specifically in Ybor City and Tampa.
“I noticed there were families around Tampa that made crab chilau and I dug a little bit deeper. It actually began in the 1920s in Ybor City and Tampa, where my dad’s side of my family is from. They grew up in Ybor City,” notes Anderson about crab chilau’s popularity as a street food.
“Blue crabs were very plentiful in Tampa Bay around that time. So it was a cheap source of food for families. They would catch their own crabs and then make the chilau with the crabs that were plentiful there.”
A Family Recipe Revealed
In Anderson’s family, his grandmother admits she doesn’t quite remember where she got the crab chilau recipe originally, but it has evolved over the years. “Specifically in my family, bell pepper and onion (and sometimes celery) are at the very core of the flavor profile…and then we’re going to have a little bit of chili pepper, garlic powder. Those types of aromatic ingredients are the base that holds it together,” he shares.
While the stew base spices used in Anderson’s family chilau recipe made the dish well-loved, it also intimidated everyone from making the dish themselves because of the complexity of the spice blend their grandmother used.
“We had a family vacation in California and I went to my uncle’s house for dinner. He starts raving about how much he loves my grandmother’s crab chilau, and he’s like, ‘I can’t wait to get back to Florida so I can get it,’” relates Anderson.
“I was like, ‘Why don’t you just make it yourself?’ He says it’s too complicated, can’t make it. And that was my light bulb moment. He should be able to experience this type of flavor in California [and] not have to wait until the next time he goes to Florida to experience it. And that’s what planted the seed for the Chilau Foods brand.”
By Jocelyn Amador
