Slower Lower Delaware

"You got to have the right mixture of Old Bay [seasoning], celery seed, cayenne pepper and salt, the lower Delaware way. People really go for it," says post commander Harry McLaughlin, a Navy veteran who served in World War II in the South Pacific.

The commander's wife, Stel, "not Stella, like from 'Streetcar.' Call me Stel," is carrying plate after plate piled with shrimp off to the weekly customers. Veterans' shrimp is also available to go. But then the camaraderie, pool table and dollar pitchers would be missed.

For Sussex-style home fries topped with chipped beef as well as colossal western omelets, locals wait their turn at Crystal Restaurant, the preferred breakfast meeting place for retirees. Families with children form ranks at Royal Treat -- a breakfast and ice cream parlor -- for one of the 12 tables on the screened porch. Some will wait 45 minutes for an old-fashioned chocolate soda made with a key ingredient (it's half-and-half).

Still, perhaps, the business that screams slower lower like no other is Lingo's Market at First Street and Baltimore Avenue. Founded by John A. Lingo in 1898, this deep, narrow, well-worn grocery with exposed pipes and a scruffy wood floor appears to change little or not at all from decade to decade.

Matriarch and downstate icon, Eleanor Lingo, 89, spends 80 hours a week behind the checkout register, possibly too close to the open produce cases. It's cold near the counters, so Lingo always bundles up with layers of cardigan sweaters in assorted colors.

"Families who have shopped here since the 1940s, they've seen her at the counter since they were children," says granddaughter Jessica Lingo. "We're maintaining a tradition. And it's hard with so much competition from the supermarkets out on the highway."

But despite the old-time look, Lingo's has diversified by offering hot, French-style pastries in the early morning as well as lobsters steamed to order, rotisserie chicken and more than 50 types of imported cheeses and pâté in the deli case. "We're adjusting to the desires of customers. It's just not retirees in Rehoboth anymore. There are more families with small children," says Lingo.

Back on Highway 1 at Bozie's Produce, a glorified roadside stand that sells local vegetables and fruits as well as the striped petunias favored by downstate gardeners, co-owner Jeany Argo is taking a lunch break at a picnic table behind the greenhouse.

Her father, Bozie Furniss, opened the business in 1971. Five years ago, with the help of her husband, Sammy, "who went from laying bricks and blocks to making cakes," they introduced Sussex-style prepared food. "It all started with a pint of coleslaw," says Argo as she finishes eating a cup of creamy clam chowder. "What makes our coleslaw different is that it's made with Miracle Whip. That's the way I was taught." She characterizes downstate cooking as "straightforward with no extra spices."

On an average summer weekend, the Argos sell 250 to 300 pounds of chicken salad that is noticeably sweetened with sugar: "My grandmother's recipe," says Argo. Gallons of lima bean soup fly out the door. Bozie's shrimp salad, rich with paprika, will wind up on crackers at cocktail parties up and down the beach.

"It's what we've eaten all our lives," says Argo. "Plain, old-fashioned cooking."