Food - Drink
What Makes A Chesapeake Bay-Style Crab Feast Unique?
By CHLOÉ ASTOR ST. CLAIR
All along the Atlantic coast, people indulge in fresh-from-the-ocean seafood boils and bakes, and the Chesapeake Bay area has its own famous style of seafood feast. Aside from featuring very fresh seafood, the Chesapeake Bay feast is unique in the way that partygoers cook their Chesapeake blue crabs.
While Southern-style crab boils can result in soggy and mushy crab, Chesapeake crabs are steamed for about 30 minutes, gently cooking the delicate meat. Live crabs are steamed solo in baskets over a blend of Old Bay, water, beer, apple cider, and/or malt vinegar, rather than being boiled together with other ingredients.
Blue crabs are succulent and sweet, and are served with vegetables like sweet corn, coleslaw, tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini, plus just-caught oysters. Tartar and cocktail sauce, malt vinegar, Mimolette sauce, and lemon wedges should be readily available, along with buckets filled with ice cold beer and crisp white wine.