Good News For Those Wanting To Eat Crabs For July 4
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- July 4 is not only a holiday celebrating America, but it is an unofficial working holiday for watermen and businesses that sell hard crabs.
For those wanting to buy some crabs for July 4th, there's good news this year.
At an Essex icon, Tony Walters is taking a lot of calls, because Maryland Blue's are on the menu.
"These are the bigger ones, the number one males, heavy got a lot of fat in them," he said.
The Fourth of July is the biggest crab eating day of the year in Maryland.
Why?
Customer Tim Barron sums it up.
"Tradition, Maryland tradition," he said.
With such demand, normally the prices for live or steamed crabs goes up on the fourth.
But here's the hot news, you can get a lot of blue for a bit less green.
"Right now there's an abundance of crabs around so the prices are down," Walters said.
Did you get that? Prices are down.
"[Reporter: Finally good news?] Finally good news. Plenty of crabs," said Walters.
So the big ones from Maryland are $40 a dozen live, and about double that steamed next door.
For this holiday, they'd do good business no matter the price, but a good harvest from the bay is helping everyone.
"I think [Essex] is the crab capital of Maryland," Walters said.
While all the restaurants and crab houses WJZ's Mike Schuh contacted said that they expect to have an abundant supply Monday and Tuesday, it's still not a bad idea to call ahead.
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