In Los Angeles, fall for me means researching, eating and writing at the fastest possible pace to pull together our annual 101 Best Restaurants in L.A. project.
But it’s also the season for an almost genetic hunger: I have to return to Maryland, where I was raised, to eat my fill of steamed crabs . The origins of an obsession I don’t remember learning how to pick apart a blue crab, in the same way I don’t remember being taught how to speak. My hands dismantling delicious, spice-caked creatures was simply part of family life near the Chesapeake Bay and its estuaries.
As a kid, I took as gospel the local folklore that crabs were best in months spelled with no R and that oysters were at their finest in months with Rs. There were practicalities behind this common belief: Levels of Red Tide can be high during summer, and sharing a few dozen steamed crabs over newspaper with butter-smeared Silver Queen corn on the cob and beer (for the grown-ups) is a warm-weather pastime in our region. As an unusually food-focused adult, I eventually understood that fall is actually peak crab season.
When the waters begin to cool, the swimmers biologically prepare for hibernation, and their meat is at its fullest and sweetest. If you have been eating crabs all your life, it’s plain to see — and taste — the difference in heft. Autumn is also when you’re most likely to get crabs caught in local waters: Over the last half-century, the rise in demand for crabs in the summer has meant bus.