The Chesapeake Bay blue crab derby is annually always held on Labor Day weekend, the star of the show in Crisfield, Maryland. In this quaint and unique town on the Delmarva Peninsula, the Hard Crab Derby has taken place for 68 years.
The four-day event includes not only the hard crab derby race from which it gets its name, a Miss Crustacean pageant, a Miss Crab Claw contest, and crab-picking contest, but also the very popular crab-cooking contest. This brings out crab dishes that sate everyone’s palate.
The 2015 contest brought in 19 entries in three divisions: Soups/Salads, Main Dish/Crab Cakes, and Appetizers. Each division is awarded a first, second and third place, and then the grand prize award is selected from the three first-place winners. The judges always re-taste and possibly taste again before the final winner is chosen. And for the first time in many years, a crab cake entry was named the best in the contest.
Mary Schafer of Crisfield had captured the judges with her Maryland Blue Crab Boudin Balls with Green Onion Aioli. She also placed first in the Main Dish/Crab Cake division. This was Mary’s second year as the grand prize winner. In 2014 her Crab Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms won the silver tray and $100.
Charlene Ann Smith of Bishopsville, Md., was the recipient of two first-place awards one in the Appetizer division and one in the Soups/Salads division.
Perhaps no species is more closely associated with the Chesapeake Bay than the blue crab. Maryland, Virginia and Potomac River Fisheries Commission manage blue crabs in the bay.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the blue crab ranges along the Atlantic Coast from Nova Scotia to Argentina. Within the Chesapeake Bay, male crabs tend to prefer fresher waters in Maryland and upper tributaries while female crabs like the saltier waters in the mainstream and Virginia.
Crabs are highly tolerant of temperature and salinity variations and can live in just about any region of the bay. Generally crabs live three to four years in the bay and reach maturity in 12-16 months. Female crabs migrate to the mouth of the bay to spawn and can produce between 750,000 and 3,200,000 eggs per brood.
Blue crabs are referred to as hard-shells, peelers (crabs about to molt), busters (crabs that have started to molt or about to start), soft-shells (crabs that have molted and shells are soft), jimmies (adult males), sooks (female hard crabs), she-crabs or sallies (immature females), and sponges or sponge crabs (adult females carrying eggs).