I’m sorry, but I grew up on the water on Long Island, and we crabbed on my dock constantly, and until I was old enough to be given the responsibility of actually getting the meat out, I completely stopped. It’s truly painful. Your hands get completely pruned after about 20 minutes of doing it, and that is when the real fun begins of cutting yourself on all the sharp edges a crab has. I understand the cathartic part of it, hanging out, relaxing with friends, talking it up, etc. But to shell 10 crabs takes a long time, it hurts, and you get hardly any meat out of it. Maybe I don’t know the true way of doing it, though we’ve done it a ton of times, I would just prefer fishing for the same type of atmosphere, but to each his own.
3 years agoLast night we gathered at EPH to pick crabs for Jeff’s 32nd birthday. There is no more catartic an activity than sitting around a table (or the bar in this case) with your closest friends/family members, shooting the shit and picking crabs. Not only are the crabs delicious, but it’s the act of procuring the meat that makes eating crabs more an activity than a meal (and twice the fun).
While we were eating, Mark mentioned that fact that majority of the nation totally misses out on picking crabs due solely to their birth place and what a tragedy that is.
We also talked about how interesting it is to introduce non-Maryland natives to the art of crab picking - some take to it right away while others are like “you want me to open that insect-looking thing up with my bare hands and eat the stuff inside of it? No thank you.” The latter don’t know what they’re missing.
