We at One Fat Frog love our restaurants, which is why we’re in the business of selling used restaurant equipment. Helping various businesses get off the ground with a much lighter financial load is worth it all the way around. Of course, they will spend that money in other places too, like on their product, or the food they will serve to their customers. Of course, when we go out to eat, we see the end result: that delicious meal sitting on a fresh, hot plate as we prepare to enjoy. But we often forget that there is a whole process that we forget about all the time: the journey that meal took before landing in the restaurant’s kitchen, and on our plates.
This comes from the fact that I’ve been digging back into one of my favorite reality shows lately, “Deadliest Catch” on the Discovery Channel. For those who haven’t seen it (and seriously, how have you not?), this show chronicles the arduous journey of Alaskan crab fishermen as they brave the vicious Bering Sea to bring us king and opilio (better known as snow) crab. We see the tasty crab legs freshly steamed and boiled sitting on our plate. But this program shows there is much more to the process.
Crab fishermen go out for each season, sailing through waters that average about 38 degrees Fahrenheit. There’s also the heavy winds from storms that can jump up at any point and monster waves that can go over an entire ship. The fishermen then drop 1,000-pound pots (large, steel cages) into the water between 300 and 400 feet deep. If they don’t place them right, they pull up nothing; if they do, however, then they get what’s pictured below.
Even at that, the Bering Sea has claimed hundreds of lives, and the fishermen who do make it back often come back banged up and exhausted, mostly from being up for 20-30 hours straight at a time fishing. And here’s the biggest thing about this show that I do love: these men are not actors, nor did they want to be. If the cameras were gone, they’d still be out fishing, risking their lives and being away from their families to let us enjoy the delectable dishes of seafood we love.
So, the next time you’re at a restaurant and order the crab legs, or you come in to One Fat Frog to get the equipment you need for your seafood restaurant, remember what it takes to get your food from the bottom of the sea to the top of your plate. And enjoy.
One Fat Frog Restaurant Equipment
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