Get crabby in San Francisco (Dungeness crab, that is)

February 19, 2008

With melted butter… with lemon… with Old Bay spices… with cocktail sauce… with garlic… with nothing at all. There are almost as many ways to eat a crab as there are places to get it in San Francisco.

Dungeness has been almost as much a part of San Francisco’s history and iconography as cable cars, dense fog, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Since the days of the Gold Rush, when the first Italian fishing boats came singing into Fisherman’s Wharf bearing their precious bounty, November through June has been a time to celebrate this delicacy in restaurants across the city.

Fisherman’s Wharf is still the hotbed of seafood activity in San Francisco, where tourists and Bay Area residents flock to the steaming, street-side crab pots to get paper trays full of freshly cracked crab legs rather inexpensively. The Wharf also boasts numerous restaurants for those looking for a sit-down experience, but there’s still nothing like getting a fresh loaf of sourdough bread, a plate of succulent crab legs, and a seat on a sunny pier with a view of the bay to make you really feel like you’re taking part in the city’s rich traditions.

One of San Francisco’s favorite crab celebrations is the annual Celebrity Crab Festival at Union Square, held this year on Saturday, March 1, from 12-3 p.m. A fundraiser for the San Francisco 49ers Foundation, members of the football team will join up with local chefs to demonstrate the art and intricacies of cracking a crab. The noon-time demonstration will be followed by a timed crab cracking and cleaning contest to see which football player can clean the most crab.

For a small sampling fee, local restaurants will provide tastes of the city’s beloved Dungeness, and visitors can sample libations in the Wine and Beer Garden. Music from Diego’s Umbrella, family entertainment including a children’s booth, and raffles will be featured throughout the event. Additionally, this year the festival will be a "zero waste" event: all materials used will be compostable and recyclable.

Or, if you’re feeling brave and want to cook your own, you can buy live crabs practically off the boats at the Wharf, in Chinatown’s local fish markets (where you can pick your own crab out from saltwater tanks), or on Clement Street in the Sunset District, where many locals go to avoid the throngs. It’s always best to have someone on hand with experience cooking crabs, though, or you may find yourself nursing pincer wounds or chasing crustaceans around the kitchen!