Secondly to know how to eat one.
Most everything is edible cept the shell and lungs.
You see them when you take the top shell off the crab.
They look triangular on both sides and look and feel spongy.
Youtube has videos but they rip the legs off too soon.
Leave the legs on and you can pull some nice chunks of meat without digging for it.
This is my favorite way to eat them:
1.) Locate the tab for the flap... which aseverybody
likes to say, resembles the Washington Monument, longand
skinny for the male, and fat and broad for thefemale.
Insert your knife, and pull and rip this part off anddiscard
it.
2.) Insert your thumb between the top half and thebottom
half of the shell from where you just ripped of thetab-flap.
Rip off the top half of the shell from the bottomthat contains
the body of the crab... set aside the top half for amoment.
There may be some fat or yellowey substance in thecorners
(inside the points) of the top half.. this iseatable.
Although it may not look like it.
3.) Now we will rip off the "Devils Fingers"or lungs, which
resemble skinny looking accordions. These are onboth sides
of the body of the crab, left and right side as itwere.
THROW THESE Devil Fingers away.... don't eat thispart of
the crab.. Don't eat the Devils Fingers, or lungs ofthe crab.
4.) Placing your hands, left hand on the left side ofthe crab,
right hand on the right side of the crab, bend downor back
and snap the two sides of the crab in half andseparate them.
5.) Now you have two halves of the crab.. with allthe legs intact
if you are smart and have done it correctly. Nowcomes a slightly
tricky part, and is different for every crab. Because crabs
molt, or shed there shells at different times intheir growing
stage, the shells of the crab will have varyingdegrees of hardness.
And coinciding with the molting process, varyingamounts of "meat"
in their shells. A fat or heavy crab will be gettingclose to
going into its molting process, the shell can be veryhard at this
point, and the crab will have a lot of meat in it soit can survive
the fasting stage when it is a softshell (all readyshed its hard
shell) and developing it hard-shell and vulnerable topredators.
Usually it buries itself or deep grasses for thisstage and hides.
Ok... you have one half the crab in your and hand(s)and now you
squeeze it to crack it upon itself... depending onhow hard the
the shell is... is how hard you will have to squeezeit. This will
become learned with experience... you don't want tosqueeze to hard
and crush it completely... but just to crack theinsides a bit.
IMPORTANT... the most delicious part of the crab iscalled the backfin.
The backfin of the crab may be pulled out beforesqueezing process..
To do this... you grab the area of the shell aroundthe backfin,
and squeeze it as described above but just in it'sspecific area, bending
backwards carefully and breaking it away from thebody... then
careful breaking away the bits of shell will exposethe beauty of the
backfin meat so desired.
6.) One half of the body has been squeezed... nowtake your knife, and
between the squeezed parts cut down the centerslength but not all the
way through to the back where the legs are coming in,just enough to
separate some of the parts that were broken when yousqueezed before.
Now... (this is why we haven't pulled the little legsout yet)
because you have loosened up the 'innards' of theshell of the
crab.. if you are lucky, (try pulling on the littlelegs, at the same
time opening up more of the shell where you put theknife before)
the little legs will pull out with a bunch of meatstuck to them
from the little shell pockets you have squeezes andslightly cut
with the knife. If gobs of meat doesn't some outwith the little
legs... open up the body where you put the knife andpush or
squeeze or pick out the meat in the pockets...
This is the part of the crab people consider work andtedious..
but as you become an expert and have followed theinstructions here,
it won't be work at all. You'll just be tellingstories about
Uncle Fred and Bill Bob or the big one that gotaway...
7.) Claws.. take your knife as shown... and hit thetop of
the knife to crack the claw about 1/4 away through,grab the
claw and break it backwards, pulling the two partsaway from
each other carefully, will expose the meat in theclaw. Bite
at the meat until you feel the cartilage in themiddle, and
pull it off in your mouth.
Crack the rest of the joints in the claw and pick themeat out
with a knife or by squeezing it out...there is meatin the tiny
legs too if you are really ambitious.... I've takenhundreds of
these tiny claws and used the meat to make quiche outof them.
But.. don't tell anybody... cause well, you knowabout real men..
they eat crabs but.. aren't supposed to cook quiche.
So now you are a pro... and if you get real good...while
your buddies are getting frustrated.. you're gettingnice
and full on Maryland Blue Crabs... impressing themall.