Stone Love

Stone Crab Season Reigns Supreme in Wild Florida

Stone crabs cooked the same day they were harvested are a special treat.

We are still appreciating the riches of Florida and its diverse environment. The Florida stone crab range runs down the Atlantic seacoast from North Carolina to Belize as well as along the Gulf Coast. The Florida stone crab, Menippe mercenaria, is a jewel in all the Florida waters. The season to harvest the delicacy runs from October 15^th to May 15^th.  That’s when you find it available in seafood markets and grocery stores in the Sunshine State. If you are not here during that time, you are out of luck.  From mid-May to mid-October, the crabs are growing those claws, molting, and making more crabs. One female can produce up to a million eggs.

Harvesting Florida stone crab in the waters of Biscayne Bay.

If you are a fan and a resident, it pays to purchase a recreational saltwater fishing license ($17/per year) and invest in crab pots to harvest your own. The claws are very pricey in stores and even more pricey in restaurants. They cost an arm and a leg. The claws are harvested from the crab by snapping off the dominant claw and returning the crab to the water where it can grow another claw if the limb was removed properly, with a clean break. Here, the skill of the harvester is a major factor in regrowth.

Our son Al has a boat that made becoming a stone crab harvester much easier. He purchased 5 crab pot kits about a month ago at the local Home Depot and filled the bottom with cement to make them easily submersible and heavy so they stay in place. Each crab pot has a marked buoy and a metal tag that identifies the licensee. Place the bait in the pot, lower it into the water, and come back in a week to check it with your ruler to measure the claw to be sure it is 2 and 7/8 inches long.

All hands on deck to help haul up the crab pot and it is never too soon to learn.

Like anything, once you are in the know, you get the picture. You see those many buoys floating around in the waters as you motor out for wakeboarding and realize there are lots of other people doing the same thing. The crab pots give the boat rides a new sense of mission and excitement.

The first week he went out he used chicken as bait, the next week it was pigs’ feet. What a delicacy for those crabs to experience terrestrial foods! Alas, that is the price they pay for losing a claw.

But doing the gathering with an appreciation for the animal and the ocean with all its many gifts makes the act spiritual. And cooking the crab claws properly (boiling them in salted water about as saline as the sea until they turn bright red—8-15 minutes, depending on size) and then chilling them to help the meat pull away from the claw. The freshly harvested crab claws deserve due respect. A creamy mustard sauce is the usual accompaniment, but it masks the sweet flavor of the fresh crabmeat. The claws need nothing at all except your attention and appreciation.

Simply boiling the crabs in salted water until they turn bright red is all you need to do. Then chill.

We are going back north soon to Pennsylvania and then to Wyoming. There won’t be the abundance of the sea nor the other special ingredients that make Florida such a culinary delight. I purchased sour oranges today to make a marinade for some yellowtail snapper and Key Limes to make a true Key Lime pie without the help of Nellie and Joe, the ubiquitous and super-acidic jarred Key Lime juice available everywhere in the US. We will go back to gathering our own wild spring foods—ramps, mushrooms, and river trout. But we are going to miss our game Florida family. And we will miss the crabs. Stone Love. We embraced it.

For more information about harvesting stone crabs check out the Florida state regulations here. Or head over to the Golden Rule seafood market in Miami or to Milam’s, a great local supermarket where they celebrate the season. Bring lots of $$.

You can buy them too--but only in season.