Massive crabcake fraud

[Anonymous]

Oceana Study Uncovers "Massive Crab Cake Fraud" in D.C. Area
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2015/04/01/oceana-study-uncovers-massive-crab-cake-fraud-in-d-c-area/
News item: a significant minority of crabcakes claiming to be from Maryland are actually from outside the country.

"The organization visited 86 restaurants throughout the D.C. and Maryland in 2014 and gathered samples of 90 crab cakes advertised as using "blue crab" or "Maryland crab." Oceana selected restaurants based on their online menus, but if the actual restaurant menu only listed "crab cake," the investigators would ask servers to confirm whether it was blue crab or not. They then sent the specimens to a lab that used DNA testing to determine the crab species. Nearly four out of 10 crab cakes contained crab imported from elsewhere, including Indo-Pacific waters and the Mexican Pacific coast. Much of this imported crab is fished unsustainably or even illegally. Oceana did not include crab cakes labeled as "Maryland-style" in the study, although those can be just as misleading."

[Anonymous]

"Significant minority" sounds like one hell of an oxymoron.

[Anonymous]

This has been the case for many years. There is not enough crabs in the bay...the bay is sick and dying. Most of the crab meat comes for the crab cakes come from the gulf or a crabs from the pacific

[Anonymous]

Anyone remember the freakout over calamari a few years ago?

*shudder*

[Anonymous]

There are several types of blue crab. Even the crab we think of as blue crab has a much wider range than just the Chesapeake.

[Anonymous]

Do the crab cakes taste good? Is there a lot of crab meat? That is what is important to me.

To me blue crab has a fairly distinctive taste. I actually prefer other types of crab meat...always have.

[Anonymous]

In other news, the sun rose in the East this morning.

[Anonymous]

But what you are all missing is that any crab harvested in the Indian Ocean has been frozen. So it really is a ripoff if you think you are ordering fresh maryland crab.