How to eat South Jersey Crabs

This special technique prevents your fingers and makes it easy to get to the
"real" meat of the crab. Your palate will appreciate the time and effort!

Difficulty: Average
Here's How:
1. You should have a knife, crab mallet or cracker, and drinks available.
2. Pull off all of the claws, eating any exposed meat from the ends.
3. Snap the crab in half and then in half again.
4. Pick out all the lump crab meat and eat as you go, leaving only the shell.
5. The meat of the small legs is not as tasty and requires more work; you may want to save them for your crab soup. To eat, just break in half and peel back the shell or suction it out with your mouth.
6. Break the large pincher claws in half.
7. Use crab mallot or cracker to crack the shell of the claw and find your succulent claw meat!

Generally speaking, a bushel of no. 1's will hold 60 - 70 crabs depending on how big the crabs are at that time of year. If there are 60 - 70 crabs,it will feed about 10 - 12 people depending upon what else is on the menu. If you have other kinds of food, such as pasta, salad, chicken, etc., you'll probably need half as many crabs. If you serve only crabs, you'll need the whole bushel.