by Kym Byrnes
I get lots of eyebrow raises when I confess that I don’t really like seafood. I never have, but for some Marylanders, that statement is straight-up lunacy.
I know seafood is one of the great joys of living in Maryland, where oyster bars, crab feasts and clamming are practically part of the culture. I have just never had much of a taste for it.
So naturally, I married a man who ate crabs the way other people eat burgers. Orioles game on? Let’s get crabs.NBA playoffs? Let’s get crabs. Might it snow this weekend? Seems like a good time to get crabs.For my former husband, crabs were not reserved for special occasions or summer weekends. They were the occasion.
Eventually, I came to understand that eating crabs is not really just about eating. It is a social venture. For some, the joy is sitting down at a restaurant where a server dumps a pile of hot, steamed crabs right onto the table. For others, the experience starts long before anyone cracks the first claw — buying them live, mixing a special blend of spices, timing the steaming and pulling them hot from the steamer at just the right moment.
Either way, steamed crabs are an experience. Crabs are expensive, messy and best enjoyed when you have plenty of room, plenty of napkins and plenty of time. They show up in warm-weather months, spread out on newspaper-covered tables and are enjoyed when surrounded by family, friends and cold drinks.
You don’t rush through steamed crabs. You sit. You pick. You talk. You laugh. You catch up. Someone shows you the “right” way to open one. Someone else insists their way is better. There is always a little friendly instruction on getting every scrap of meat out of the shell, a little chatter about baseball or football, and a lot of Old Bay seasoning.
Somewhere in my 20s, between the crab-loving husband and my desire to be in the mix at the picnic table, I started eating crabs. My method is to dredge it through butter, dab it in Old Bay and enjoy what is, for me, essentially a very Maryland delivery system for butter and spice.
As may be the case for many Marylanders, crabs eventually became part of my own tradition. About a decade ago, my family started getting crabs for Mother’s Day, and now that is how I kick off summer — with celebration, family and the happy promise of warmer months ahead.
I love what steamed crabs represent: the long table, the slower pace, the warm afternoon and the people gathered together for the experience. In the August/September issue of Carroll Magazine, we take a closer look at one of Maryland’s most beloved traditions (see page 60). However you enjoy your crabs — with skill, patience or mostly with butter — I hope the end of your summer brings good food, good friends and reasons to linger a little longer at the table.
