Worrying about the Blue Crab

The talk amongst the seafood purveyors lately has been the potential high cost of fresh Chesapeake Bay blue crab meat this coming season. There's a lot of discussion of availability in general; then there's the story about the crab pickers dilemma, or rather the lack of crab pickers. The one thing everyone can agree on is that there might be crab meat but it will be expensive. Even Phillips Seafood - a big importer of Asian Blue Swimming Crabmeat - might be having supply issues with their imported product. A lot of people use this crab meat - which typically has big, snow white lumps - all year round. The fact that the meat is rather lackluster in taste doesn't seem to bother consumers, but it's not a product we plan to use. We would rather stick with the domestic crab, which can be from Texas and Louisiana, as well as the Bay.

The big problem will be the price of the item on the plate. We sure don't want to put a $35 crabsteak on our menu, which no one will order. We'd rather skip it altogether and sell shrimp cakes. To think that fresh crab meat could become the special occasion menu item like foie gras and caviar is rough - crab meat once a year as a special treat??? That would be pretty sad.