Chesapeake Blue Crabs Review

The blue crab is the icon of the Chesapeake — its Latin name, Callinectes sapidus, literally means “beautiful savory swimmer” — and eating a pile of them, steamed and heavily seasoned, dumped on a newspaper-covered table, is the definitive Virginia summer ritual. You crack and pick them by hand for an hour to earn a meal, which is exactly the point; it’s slow, social, and messy. When they’re not whole they show up as a proper Virginia crab cake — nearly all sweet jumbo lump meat, barely any filler — or, in a magic few weeks of spring, as soft-shell crabs you eat shell and all. The bay’s health rises and falls, and every waterman will tell you about it, but the crab is still the heart of the table.