I don't know what boiling crabs smell like, but if they're as redolent as most raw seafood, then I can imagine how that would put you off eating them when they were done.

We used to walk past the Fulton Fish Market on our way to the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, when my sister and I were young and hadn't eaten much or any seafood because our mom never cooked it. To this day, I remember that place when I pick up a piece of not-so-spectacularly-fresh fish or shrimp from the supermarket, and it can spoil the meal if you still smell-taste that reek when it's on your plate.

Anyway. Eight kids, huh? And twelve when you lot showed up? I don't think we would hit a dozen if we combined all my first cousins in one place. *counts* Nope, nine, including my sister and me, and two of those cousins weren't born until I was in my teens. I wonder what it would have been like to gather in big groups of relatives like that.