How to - Pick a Crab

Professional crab picker, Joyce Fitchett from Crisfield, explains how she picks meat from the body of a Blue Crab.

[danasutton]

That’s my grandmother, Pamela, to the left of Ms. Joyce! These ladies still pick crabs at Metompkins’ Seafood in Crisfield, MD! ❤️

[MisterGeezy]

When she said "I've been picking crabs since I was 5 years old and now I'm 70." I stopped the video and deleted all the long 'how to pick crab' videos in my YouTube recipe folder. 🙂

[craigs]

Joyce that is awesome. Your speed and ease of cleaning, makes it look easier than it is. Thanks

[andreas]

It is always a pleasure to watch a pro at work. Very nice.

[rixxroxxk]

I’m in Westover, MD, about 10 miles from Crisfield. These women are AMAZING!!! Thank you for your work Ms. Joyce!

[MISSLOVELY_REE]

5 years old now you a granny thank you for teaching me this unique skill god bless

[danicook]

Loved watching this. Shows you we can learn from the older generations if you have the patience to listen.

[lesliefleming]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. What a wonderful job❤

[walteranderson]

Hello and thanks Grandma Joyce for this video. No fluff, clear and straight to the point.

[lasker]

Joyce, thank you for sharing a piece of the knowledge you have acquired in your 65 years of picking crabs. I love crabs and you are my hero.

[terrencenojokebozeman]

That's God level of picking crab... This the best instructor I've seen since my grandmother.

[RichardColwell]

I bet you Joyce got some good stories to listen to while working

[dacollector]

Its amazing how fast she works they had to slow it down for us to see it

[georgecrosby]

Exactly how my Dad trained me to pick Crabs some 55 years ago. He was taught by crabhouse pickers when he worked as a dump truck driver hauling the shells away!! When I watch crab "picking" videos I turn them off as soon as they vary from this method. Thank you for showing the world how to do it!!!

[tezzyboy]

This is the best and shortest tutorial I have seen and I’m definitely going to use it. She knows exactly what she’s doing. My one sadness about living overseas is not having Maryland blue crabs in the summertime the best ever.

[watchingyou]

History, legacy this nice lady has spent a lifetime at doing this. God bless her. If I could I'd like to take her out for a 5 star meal some place, she deserves it.

[tonyaprince_]

That is EXACTLY how you pick a blue crab to get all of the meat out. I was taught that way when I was about 7 and have doing it that way ever since. Thank you Mrs. Mercedes Bell for that lesson.

[onoahimahi]

I’ve been catching my own crabs recreationally with crab pots, steaming and picking to make crab cakes. I need to get faster at the picking part and have been attempting to use this video to do so and am very grateful for it. She is a master and although her technique looks simple, I found it difficult to emulate but I am getting there slowly. I had to break it down step by step and discovered that part of my difficulty is that she is handling the right-hand-side and left-hand-side of the crab differently. For example, on the RHS she picked the lump out of the top piece, and on the LHS she picked the lump out of the bottom piece. I wrote down the steps in order to emulate. The steps are 1) RHS, crab right-side-up, cut off legs from front to back. Knife is pointed up. 2) “Cut the top piece off, straight across” with a deep cut that includes most of the lump with the top of crab and picks the lump. 3) Cuts away and tosses something that she doesn’t mention that she refers to later on the LHS as “little thin layer of bone”. 4) then she picks the grooves on the top part. 5) then on the bottom she picks the meat out of the grooves putting the bottom part of the lump with the body meat, not the lump meat. Now for the LHS: 1) with the crab up-side-down, cut off the legs from back to front with the knife pointed down. 2) Flip crab back to right-side-up and cut the top piece off from back-to-front. 3) Then she removes a “little thin layer of bone” that she removed above but didn’t mention. 4) pick out the grooves on the top side. 5) Back to the bottom part of the body right-side-up, remove the lump and pick out the grooves. I'm going to keep trying until I master it!

[traviswilliams]

this is the best crab picking instructional video in have ever seen. thank you so much for sharing.

[davidh]

The mustard...LOL! That's what my grandmother use to say when I was younger. She would tell me, "it's mustard, just eat it".