It’s Time for Maryland Crab Soup

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It’s Time for Maryland Crab Soup

Arguably one of the best ways to eat the Maryland blue crab is this: sitting around the table, chatting and laughing, drinking *****, and cracking claws. Extra crab meat — when there is any — is typically repurposed into crisp-tender crab cakes, ******* dips or classic Maryland crab soup.

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You’ll find all sorts of crab specialties on restaurant menus in the Chesapeake region, and Maryland crab soup, traditionally made with a tomato-base, almost always makes an appearance.

While the soup is usually available year round, Chesapeake Bay blue crab season runs from April through mid-December, so now is the time to enjoy the freshest bowl of Maryland crab soup, especially while tomatoes, corn and green beans — a few of the most common vegetables found in the soup — are at their peak.

Joyce White, a food historian, describes Maryland crab soup as a version of Brunswick stew, another tomato-based dish traditionally filled with vegetables and squirrel or rabbit, though today you’ll often find chicken in it instead.

Maryland crab soup, Ms. White explains, is considered a folk tradition. Ms. White said you can never really be certain where or when a soup like this started because it’s been around for hundreds of years in one form or another, though it most likely would have started with Indigenous cooks using whatever vegetables were in season.

It has long been passed down by observation and imitation, especially since people didn’t tend to write recipes down. The ingredients and their quantity change depending on what is available.

Lima beans, runner beans and corn were often incorporated into the base, similarly to succotash. “Over time, as Europeans came and introduced tomatoes and herbs, you’ll see the recipe change, but essentially still be the same,” Ms. White said. The protein, whether that be fish, turkey or crab, would depend on what cooks had plenty of.

Allison Colden, a fisheries scientist and the Maryland executive director for the

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, said blue ****** are a huge part of Chesapeake Bay culture, woven into the fabric of the region. “Blue ****** in Maryland are like a cult,” she said.

Blue crab is found all along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, and some argue that, because the ****** are all the same species, they taste the same. But blue ****** from the Chesapeake Bay have a sweeter flavor than their Gulf counterparts because they swim in a mix of fresh and saltwater. (The water in the Gulf is entirely saltwater, hence a brinier flavor.)

Ms. Colden additionally points to Chesapeake Bay winters as part of the flavor difference. “Because they get cold enough in the Bay,” she said, “they develop **** stores that Gulf ****** do not.”

Last September,

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in Annapolis won the people’s choice award at

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for its version of Maryland crab soup.

Scott Harrison, the executive chef, thickens it with a roux and adds a bit of bacon to the base, along with fresh tomatoes and claw meat. For him, the best crab soups feature good vegetables and, of course, Maryland ******.

“They’re a lot sweeter, they’re more fuller-bodied,” he said, adding, “Maryland crab is the best crab.”

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#Time #Maryland #Crab #Soup

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