Iknew we were onto something good when my dining companion took a bite of the appetizer and instantly said: “This reminds me of the West Indies salad we had summers on the river when I was growing up.”

It was something powerful to behold. That bite of crabmeat had only carried her a few miles from our table at Little Bird in Fairhope but it also had flung her several decades into the past, when her extended family would gather at a rustic fish camp on the banks of the Magnolia River. The camp and its equally scruffy surroundings are now long gone, replaced by waterfront residences with eye-watering prices. The memories remain, waiting to be triggered.

For those not in the know, West Indies salad is a ceviche-like dish first served in the late 1940s at Bayley’s Steak House, a restaurant

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