It's almost as if an invisible crab force field across the Delaware state line has prevented the little snippers from making their way north to our tables intact.
"You're from Pennsylvania?" I overheard owner Pat Keeler say to a friend at her Boondocks restaurant in Smyrna, Del. "Then I know you don't know how to pick a crab!"
Hey, I resemble that remark! But a guy can get out of practice if too many summers pass without diving in to explore the mysterious crannies of a crab's anatomy and rediscover where those jewels of sweet white meat are hiding. To pry them free, the ultimate crab-picker employs a combination of finely tuned brute force (crack!), a watchmaker's delicacy, a bayman's intuition to find the meat where he can't see it, and an extra measure of patience.
My first couple of victims, inevitably, get mauled. But halfway through the third, the knowing touch magically reappears, and what suddenly appears? A perfect plume of feathery white lumps clinging to the end of a leg like a paintbrush from the Chesapeake gods. A quick dip in drawn butter, then a swab in crackly Old Bay, and this one bite makes it all worthwhile: Waves of celery salt and clovey red spice give way to decadent butter, and then the swelling oceanic richness of the crab itself that lingers.
Of course, the hunger for hard-shells is one sated morsel-by-morsel over the course of hours, not minutes. And it'll stoke a tall thirst quenched by pitchers, not a meager pint, of beer. So be sure, if you make the effort to head south for a day-trip to hard-shell heaven, that you bring along some favorite friends to share the pile.
Here are three unique spots we discovered within an hour-and-a-half's drive of Center City that were worth the trip:
The Rivershack at the Wellwood
