One of Summer’s Greatest Food Delights Also Takes a Lot of Work. That’s Starting to Change, and Not Everyone’s Happy About It.

Food The End of Cracking the Crab Yourself Restaurants rarely leave the work of crustacean-eating in our hands anymore—is it time to claw the messy ritual back? Aug 15, 20265:50 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. On a recent outing to the opulent, subterranean cocktail lounge Kitty’s Cosmopolitan Club in Chicago, four friends eagerly agreed to order the Dungeness crab “cocktail,” among other posh snacks, to wash down with silky gin martinis stirred tableside. The crab arrived shelled, piled jarringly into a fluted scallop shell. The meat itself was delicious, buttery-sweet, exhaling gentle heat and bright citrus. But the lack of effort to exc