In the old days when you had to go hunt them up from your local swamp, they mostly tasted like the swamp mud from whence they came. They weren’t called “mud bugs” for nothing.
Nowadays when you can buy them at the supermarket, they’re mostly cultivated so there isn’t that muddy aftertaste.
But there are plenty of good reasons why they are almost exclusively found in dishes with tons of spices to disguise their less than delicious taste.
What I think is criminal is to take those delicious little Blue Claw Crabs and overwhelm them with spices. Old Bay and all the rest of what they add just completely drowns out the delicious sweetness of the crab meat.
I got spoiled as a kid because I was able to go catch my own either with a net from the piers or a crab trap with my rowboat.
Then I’d put them in that big crisper drawer that was the whole width of the refrigerator. bottom until I had enough to boil up a big pot.
All they really need is some melted butter (and maybe a little garlic) to be absolutely fantastic.
But I’ve never been able to find anyplace serving them that way. They always have them in a pot with ten tons of spices dumped in with them and I just can’t handle that much heat.
They serve Lobster with drawn butter. Why not do the same with crabs? They really don’t need all that crap dumped on them.