Idaho has its potatoes, Norway has its fjords, and Maryland has crabs.

For those of you who have never been here, crabs are sort of Maryland’s ‘thing’. Specifically the Maryland blue crab. You go to Maryland, you have the blue crab.

So, now that you’ve all passed Maryland Food History 101, I’ll tell you a bonus fact: crabs are crazy expensive. I have no idea what makes them so expensive, but I’m sure it has to do with the teeny tiny bit of meat each one has. All the effort of catching, steaming, cracking, and harvesting the meat will net you a whopping 2-3oz per large crab, according to https://www.bluecrab.info/nutrition.htm

Well, since Maryland had all these crabs, and a zillion tourists come in each year, the restaurants found a way to create a crab meal that was:
1) Made of crab
2) Would fill you up
3) Didn’t take forever to eat
3) Not crazy expensive

What they made was a mixture of crab, breading, and spices and then fried the whole thing up. Sadly, the person who named it wasn’t very creative (he should have visited this blog more!) so he called them crab cakes. And crab cakes are what people order when they are feeling richer than McD’s, but not rich enough for Red Lobster.

Unfortunately, crab cakes are one of those dishes that stores really love to cut corners on. Afterall, your middle class customers don’t want to pay $15 for lunch, so you have to find a way to get that price down to something easier to swallow. So they stuff way too much breading in, or just add a lot more Old Bay, or some other silliness to keep the price down.

Which is why I’ve only ever, in my entire life, had 2 great crab cakes. I won’t ruin the fun by telling you where I ordered them. Just know this: you’re not getting anywhere near a really good crab cake for under 20 bucks.

All of this is what I was thinking as I was shopping with my boys. We were fending for ourselves while their mother is out of town for the weekend.

Definition:
Fending for Ourselves: verb. What dads and their children do when their mother is away. It involves going out to eat and buying TV Dinners.

So we were at the grocery store buying TV Dinners, and we passed the canned seafood aisle. And just what do you think I thought to myself? Why, I thought “Hey, I bet I could make a really good crab cake!” And what did I do? Why, I reached all the way to the bottom shelf and bought the cheapest canned crab they had available. Yes folks, we have ‘bottom shelf’ crab here in Maryland.

Turns out that in order to make good crab cakes, you need good crab. Go figure! Still, I managed to cook something that almost tasted like crab, but mostly tasted like fried panko bread crumbs mixed with Old Bay. On the positive side, all three of my boys (they all don’t like seafood) not only took a bit of my creation, but ended up liking it! Probably because it only vaguely resembled crab.