Crab Cakes

The crab cake is another important Chesapeake Bay regional dish, using the meat from the ubiquitous blue crab. The dish’s origin has been attributed to Boston, Massachusetts, New York City, Wilmington, Delaware and Baltimore, Maryland. All are possible. Starting in 1820 the harvesting of the tidal waters of the Eastern Seaboard, particularly oysters, became the engine of the area’s prosperity, which, despite the Civil War, lasted up to the beginning of the twentieth century. The crab cake has evolved along with America’s eating habits over the last two hundred years to become a multifaceted dish demonstrating the influence of Afro-American and French cooking. It is possible that the first crab cake was cooked in emulation of the New England codfish cake, substituting crab meat for salt cod; or by a black slave cook on a Maryland tidewater plantation; or by a European trained chef at some hotel or club in Baltimore. Within reason it was probably a combination of all three, and may well have occurred in Baltimore.