Steamed Maryland Blue Crabs - Medium Males (5½–6 in)

Medium Jimmy Crabs and the Slow Afternoon

Crab picking is one of the few meals designed to take all afternoon, and a table stocked with medium males keeps that rhythm going longest. At 5½–6 in apiece, mediums mean more crabs, more rounds, and more reasons to stay in your seat while the light changes.

Why Smaller Can Be the Right Call

The meat in a medium jimmy is the same sweet crab you get from the top grades, just in a tighter package. The trade is volume. A bigger count per table means newcomers get plenty of practice crabs while the veterans settle into their groove, and nobody hesitates to reach for another. If your gatherings run casual and hungry, this is the workhorse grade.

Sent Ahead, Arriving Ready

A pattern shows up in the reviews for this size: people ship mediums as gifts, sometimes timed to land before they themselves arrive for a visit. Buyers describe orders showing up neatly packed and well seasoned, with a reheat so simple it barely counts as cooking. One went as far as calling these the best crabs on the East Coast.

The Practical Part

Every batch is steamed only after your order is placed, with or without spice as you choose. It travels in an insulated cooler kept cold with gel packs (dry ice rides along on any two-day route), and crabs that arrive firm or icy just need a few minutes over shallow steaming water before they hit the paper.

If your table likes variety, a dozen large female crabs adds a sweeter body-meat profile beside the jimmys. To find the months when mediums run fullest, read our guide to the Maryland hard shell crab season, then clear a Saturday and let the afternoon do its work.