by Stephanie Marie Chizik
Families swarm to Mike's dock perched above the chop of the South River. They come by car and by boat. The indoor dining room is shunned by the locals who will wait for hours to sit outside on the deck. Wooden picnic tables wrap around the shack and line the edge of the railing. Diners are shaded by green umbrellas in the daytime and the Riva Bridge at dusk.
You don't come to Mike's Crab House for the burgers or fish sandwiches, though I try something non-crab every year in the winter months, succumbing to my need for summer. You come for the crabs, a beer to wash them down and an appetizer to take the edge off your hunger while your fingers continue to pick.
We order the same thing every time: one dozen large crabs, a pitcher of Miller Lite, a basket of shrimp jammers, a basket of fries, water all around and melted butter. Minutes later, a busboy (usually the son of a neighbor attending my alma mater) saunters up to the table with the essentials. He never makes eye contact, maybe already pissed about the mess he knows we'll make. He's the one who will have to remove the waste when we're done, folding the then-useless brown paper tablecloth around the empty carcasses. I wouldn't want his job.
I lean back from the tabletop, grabbing my purse and cell phone that had been resting next to my elbows. Looking down, he drapes the tablecloth (which will give me an impressive paper cut by the end of the meal) over the wooden surface. He drops off wooden mallets, plastic knives and two bowls full of vinegar and Old Bay. If you're going to have Maryland crabs, you have to eat them with our traditional seasoning. It's a mixture of twelve herbs and spices originally made by a German-Jewish sausage maker who fled to Baltimore during World War II. Gustav Brunn's mixture was brought to Annapolis in 1939 by Robert Campbell of Campbell's Seafood Company, and adopted by the seafood-lovers on that day.
When our waitress returns she drops off a plastic tray buckling from our pile of crabs, soon followed by the appetizers. The Old Bay, caked onto the hard shell of the crab, looks like red dirt. As I grab one from the top of the mound and brush off the excess grit with burnt fingers, my father hands me a beer and a paper towel. I've worn jeans and anything but white for this meal, ready for the Old Bay shower that stains everything it touches. I look down at the start of a meal that will require several hours of labor.
I learned how to eat crabs from Joe Stone on a sailing trip. My parents aren't native crab-eaters, so Joe, hailing from North Carolina, assumed the responsibility of teaching my family how to pick apart our home mascot.
1: Place a crab with stomach facing up in front of you.
2: Remove all eight legs by grasping the appendage at the knuckle closest to the shell. For best results remove this knuckle along with the leg. (Though Joe taught us to leave the legs with paddles on the body, I have since learned that it's better to take these off, too. I try to pull out whole chunks of meat on the handle of a fin at the beginning, whereas Joe leaves the handle on to use later.) The meat on and in the legs can be eaten. Annapolitans, or at least Annapolitans who learned how to eat crab from North Carolinians, prefer dipping the crab meat in butter, though, native Marylanders shun this lobster-like behavior. Apparently, only "true" blue crabbers use vinegar and more Old Bay. The choice is yours.
3: Remove t-shaped key at the crease along with feelers hidden underneath.
4: Wedge both thumbs in between the top shell and body to pry the halves apart.
5: Place top shell aside and use as "trash" receptacle.
6: Flip body over and remove all internal organs, including, but not limited to, lungs, intestines and stomach. (These were in fact at one time not too long ago living creatures. If the prospect of removing organs from the cavity is too barbaric for you, please abort crab-eating mission now while you still have fairly clean hands and your integrity.) Place discarded organs in top shell. Note: the thick brownish-yellow substance lining the side cavities is referred to as "mustard." Removing this is another personal choice; most Marylanders don't like this bitter taste, though the French and Canadians see it as a delicacy. (My sister, Jen, and I have been known to rinse the chunks of meat off in the sink when eating crabs at home.)
7: Cut an upside-down 'V' at the base of the crab, removing the area between the two side cavities.
8: Snap body cavities apart, separating what's left of the body in half.
9: Scrape out meat from within cavities. A few suggestions with this step: first try punching your pinky finger through the holes where the legs were once attached to the body. If this doesn't work, or if your finger is too large, peel off the cartilage located between the individual sections of the cavities.
10: Dip the meet in butter or vinegar and Old Bay or nothing and eat. Enjoy and start your next crab before you stop chewing!
After three crabs, I'm tired of working for my food, used to purchasing precut t-bones and pork tenderloins from the local grocery store. My stomach's not used to this type of manual labor and needs sustenance to fill the void. The tips of my thumbs are raw from the sharp edges of broken shell. Grains of celery salt, cardamom and paprika line my nails, wedged deep under the white keratin. I try to use the sweat from my plastic beer cup to wash the film off my palms, but it too is covered in Old Bay, transferred from my hands during the meal. I give up and rest my elbows on any dry area of the paper tablecloth. The brown paper under the debris is soaked in crab juice and tears easily. My fingers sprout up like a surgeon's as I wait to wash my hands in the bathroom inside the restaurant.
I look up for the first time in an hour. As my eyes readjust to the sun setting behind the South River Bridge, I stretch my back, sore from a concentrated hunch.