h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you never have tried eating blue crab, you really must. The flavor is so incredible and the hands-on experience of prising the sweet meat from the shells is fun and social. There is simple pleasure in gathering some friends, a couple of bushels of crabs, and a tub of beer and making an afternoon of it. This is not the fast-food, on the go, eat-and-run-in-forty-five-minutes kind of a meal. Cracking the claws with a mallet and actually communing with your pals is satisfying...and messy. Old Bay Seasoning cakes your fingers (do not rub your eyes with your hand! Use your shoulder.) Juice runs all down your arms and will get on your clothes (dress appropriately.) By the way, that whole Chesapeake Bay mystique is pretty much a mystaque these days. They get a good portion of the crabs sold in the Maryland seafood stalls from the Carolinas. Overfishing and dredging the crabs early in the season almost killed off the poor critters up there. They have finally started enforcing the size limits and seasonal fishing laws. (Throw back females with eggs, blah blah--really just common sense.) That being said, if you decide to use a chicken neck and some twine to catch your own crabs for cooking, be nice and throw back the babies and the mammas. Now, Lets eat!