Stone Crab Season, and How to Buy It

Stone crab season runs from 15 October to 1 May. For six months of the year it is the best thing on a Florida table, and for the other six it simply is not available. That is worth knowing before you plan a menu.

Only the claw

Stone crabs are not killed for their meat. One claw is taken and the crab is returned to the water, where it regrows over the following moults. It is one of the few genuinely renewable shellfish fisheries left, and it is the reason the price is what it is.

They are already cooked

Claws are boiled on the boat or at the dock within minutes of landing, then chilled. You are buying a cooked product. Nobody sells you a raw stone crab claw, and if someone offers one, walk away.

This also means you never reheat them. Serve them cold, cracked, with mustard sauce. Heating a stone crab claw ruins the texture and wastes the money.

Sizes, and which to buy

Medium, large, jumbo, colossal. The meat tastes the same across all of them. What you pay for is the ratio of work to reward. For a standing party where people eat with their fingers, large is the sweet spot. For a plated first course, jumbo looks like something.

How to tell a good one

The shell should be glossy and black-tipped, not chalky. It should feel heavy for its size. Ask when it came in. A good fish market will tell you the day, and if they cannot, buy something else.

The sauce

Mayonnaise, Dijon, a little dry mustard, lemon, Worcestershire, cream to loosen it. Make it the day before so the mustard settles down. That is the whole recipe, and it has not needed improving in fifty years.