Soft Crabs
Turn up the ends of the shells and take out the dead man's fingers and take off the flap, and cut out the sand-bag; lay them in cold water until ready to fry. Then dust flour over them, a little salt, and fry them in hot lard.--Mrs. D.
A cleaning instruction with a brief fry attached. The terms are all Chesapeake trade language, and once they are translated the method holds up exactly as written.
- Dead man's fingersThe feathery grey gills that lie under the pointed ends of the top shell. They are not poisonous, despite the name, but they are spongy and unpleasant to chew, so lift the shell points and pull them out on both sides.
- The sand-bagThe stomach sac, a hard granular pouch just behind the eyes. A common modern method is to snip across the face of the crab, about a quarter inch behind the eyes, which takes the sac and the mouthparts in one cut.
- The flapThe apron on the underside, pointed on males and broad and rounded on mature females. Twist it and pull, and the attached bit of intestine comes with it.
- Buy them aliveSoft crabs are blue crabs caught just after moulting, and they spoil fast. They should be sluggishly moving when you clean them; a dead soft crab of unknown age is not worth frying. Frozen ones, already cleaned, are the practical substitute.
- The cold water soakFine for holding them briefly, but do not leave them long. Drain and pat dry before flouring or the crust will not take, and wet crabs going into hot fat spit badly.
- Hot lardLard is still sold and gives the cleanest result; any neutral fat at 350-375F works the same way. Half an inch in a heavy skillet is enough, and it is usual to put the crabs in shell side down first.
- TimingTwo to three minutes a side for an average crab, until the shell turns red-orange and the edges crisp. They cook through very quickly and go tough and dry if held longer.
- YieldTwo crabs per person as a main course, one as a first course or in a sandwich. Serve immediately; they lose their crispness within minutes.
Soft crabs are a seasonal accident of biology turned into a delicacy: a blue crab that has just shed its shell and not yet grown a new one, edible whole, legs and all. The Chesapeake fishery built around them was well established by the time Housekeeping in Old Virginia was first published in 1877, and the vocabulary in this entry -- dead man's fingers, the sand-bag, the flap -- is the same language watermen and cooks used up and down the Bay. Marion Cabell Tyree's book collects contributions from Virginia housewives, credited in various ways, which is presumably why the recipe ends with an initial rather than a full name; it assumes a cook who has handled crabs before and needs only to be reminded what to pull off. The brevity is the point: the dish is nearly all cleaning, and the frying is left to good sense.