She Crab Soup

                                                                                                                        photo  ©2010  Ron Dollete

During the fall, in my portion of the Chesapeake, female crabs are fattening up for the long run back to the ocean to lay their eggs. You see they spend the first half of their life making their way north in the Chesapeake. They feed, and molt, and feed and molt. When they reach 3-4 inches in length, and are ready to go through the molting cycle, they get scooped up by a large male or "Jimmy" and he carries her around with him until she sheds into a softshell. At this point, the pair breed and he goes on about his business being a crab. The female hardens over the next 24-36 hours, and her sould purpose in life at this point is to eat anything an everything in sight, o that she can make the long journey down the bay, and out to the Continental Shelf, where she will lay her eggs. She will never return to the Chesapeake. If she survives another year, she can lay a 2nd batch of eggs using the same fertilization she has been storing from the prior year..no male needed for round 2. 

So, the fall migration of millions of female crabs headed out to sea has begun. For a lot of commercial crabbers, this is when they catch a majority of their crabs. 50-60 bushel days are not un-common in the fall, with 90% of them being females that are sold mostly to picking houses. But, for the consumer, and recreational crabber, females are usually available fairly cheap at seafood shops and crab trucks throughout the region. Since recreational crabbers are not allowed to keep females, this is your only option if you want to make she crab soup. 

I like to make this on a cool Sunday morning, and its usually ready by game time. Like most soups, this gets better the longer it sits, so by all means make it a day ahead of time. 

Ingredients:

2 oz. Salt Pork or fatty bacon
2 quarts of water
3 1 pound cans of crushed tomatoes
2 10 oz packages of mixed vegetables
2 cups of potatoes, diced
1 3/4 cups of shredded cabbage
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 onion, diced
2 tbs seafood seasoning
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 pound of crab meat
couple of pieces of whole cooked 

In an 8 quart pot, add salt pork or bacon pieces and cover with 2 quarts of water. cover and simmer for about an hour. Add all of the remaining ingredients except the crab meat and cook until the vegetables are done. about 20-30 minutes. Pick through the crab meat, and remove all of the cartilage. cut a couple of while crab sections into quarters with claws and legs intact. Add crab meat, and crab sections and heat through. serve with extra crab seasoning, or your favorite hot sauce! enjoy!