Not too many weeks ago, The New York Times reported on the crab industry on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The Travel section made it sound as if crabs were plentiful. It’s tough out there. Fishermen are coming back with smaller and smaller catches although there are signs that the Fall season will be better and there really will be enough Jumbos to feed the masses. Over the 4th of July, the traditional time restaurants are filled with people ready for the Old Bay seasoning all over their fingers, many restaurants had only mediums. To the novice or the would-be food adventurer, the smaller the crab as in small, medium, large, and jumbo, the more work you’ll have to do to get out any crab meat. Or, the hungrier you’ll be after your so-called dinner.

There’s a true non-local aspect to much of the crab being sold along the East Coast. The mythology is that it comes from Maryland or Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The reality is that many restaurants, especially those priding themselves on their crab meat and hard shells, are getting them from the Gulf, from Southeast Asia, and from Venezuela. I kid you not. The restaurant responses are almost identical: They cannot buy enough local crabs to satisfy the lines of customers willing to eat at the restaurant or buy dozens for take out. Finding the true local crab purveyor means you take what they could purchase that day. Some of the bigger restaurants understand that their decisions, to go beyond the region, assures them a plentiful supply of crabs.

“Venezuela,” it brings a laugh until they bite into the Crab Bomb; the non-filler experience makes them believers.

You’ll need to get out an Atlas to follow the path of these crabs to local shores, but the lines of prospective diners just hope they have Jumbos.