Crab

Mid-Atlantic waters offer many kinds of fishing, but crab probably receives the most attention. Whether from a yacht or a dinghy, a pier or a mud bank, the sight of a string tied to a chicken neck is the coastal zone's universal summer signature. This article survives from the original facts library, lightly updated.

The Beautiful Savory Swimmer

Crabs are invertebrates of the phylum Arthropoda — joint-legged animals — and more specifically decapod crustaceans: ten legs and a hard shell. Science knows the blue crab as Callinectes sapidus, a name that needs no improving: Callinectes means "beautiful swimmer" and sapidus means "savory."

What a Crab Eats

Crabs are famous as scavengers, locating decaying food by odor with extraordinarily sensitive antennae — but they actually prefer live or fresh food. At night they hunt baitfish and smaller crabs around lighted piers; by day they lie motionless on the bottom waiting for passersby. Clam, oyster and mussel beds serve as their feeding grounds — biologists estimate an adult crab may eat over 1,200 juvenile clams a day — and they round out the diet with marsh cordgrass, eelgrass and sea lettuce.

The Fishery

The blue crab has long ranked among the most valuable fisheries of the Mid-Atlantic — in Delaware it is the most valuable of all, averaging some 50,000 bushels of hard-shells and peelers a year. Potting accounts for the majority of the commercial catch, with licenses issued by pot count. In winter, crabs bed down in deep water; dredges working the wintering beds bring up mostly females bound for the picking houses. A picking house expects a 10–15% meat yield from each crab; in the Delmarva region the rest — shell, viscera, unpicked meat — is ground into feed, and researchers, including Sea Grant scientists at the University of Delaware, keep finding new uses for the remainder. The Chesapeake Bay Program's blue crab profile tracks the modern science and stock assessments.

Grading: Jimmies and Sooks

Crabs are sold by size and sex. Large males six inches or more across the shell are No. 1 Jimmies and command a premium; males over five inches grade No. 2. Mature females — sooks — typically head to the picking houses for meat. It is a grading language all its own, learned fastest with a mallet in hand at a paper-covered table.

Soft-Shells: The Brief, Glorious Season

The blue crab's molt produces the East Coast's most fleeting delicacy. For a few hours after shedding, the entire crab is soft enough to eat whole — and crabbers who catch "peelers" on the verge of molting hold them in floats to harvest at the perfect moment. Cleaned, dredged in seasoned flour and pan-fried in butter, a soft-shell crab is eaten claws and all, preferably on white bread with lettuce and a judicious swipe of tartar sauce, ideally within sight of the water it came from. The season runs roughly May through September, and no part of crab cookery rewards proximity to the source more.

From Facts to Dinner

Picked blue crab becomes crab cakes, crab-stuffed mushrooms and crabmeat stuffing for baked fish — all in the recipe collection. For the crab legs that anchor a winter feast, walk north to our Alaskan king crab guide; for the rest of the shellfish bench, clams and scallops await. A picking tip from the paper-covered tables: work cold crabs, not hot — the meat releases cleaner — and trust the backfin lump for crab cakes, where a single ribbon of shell can undo an hour of care.