With Chesapeake Bay blue crab season in full swing — and tomatoes, corn and green beans at their peak — make Maryland crab soup right now.
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Arguably one of the best ways to eat the Maryland blue crab is this: sitting around the table, chatting and laughing, drinking beer, and cracking claws. Extra crab meat — when there is any — is typically repurposed into crisp-tender crab cakes, creamy dips or classic Maryland crab soup.
Recipe: Maryland Crab Soup
You’ll find all sorts of crab specialties on restaurant menus in the Chesapeake region, and Maryland crab soup, traditionally made with a tomato-base, almost always makes an appearance.
While the soup is usually available year round, Chesapeake Bay blue crab season runs from April through mid-December, so now is the time to enjoy the freshest bowl of Maryland crab soup, especially while tomatoes, corn and green beans — a few of the most common vegetables found in the soup — are at their peak.
Joyce White, a food historian, describes Maryland crab soup as a version of Brunswick stew, another tomato-based dish traditionally filled with vegetables and squirrel or rabbit, though today you’ll often find chicken in it instead.
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