Chesapeake Bay produces and serves some of the best seafood you will ever find. Eating these great seafood dishes will satisfy even the most discerning food critic.

Area Background:

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States and one of the most diverse. It covers approximately 11,400 square kilometers and stretches 332 kilometers from Virginia Beach, Va., to Havre de Grace, Md., at the mouth of the Susquehanna River (fig. 1). Its watershed drains a region of 165,800 square kilometers. The Chesapeake is the shipping artery for Norfolk, Va., and Baltimore, Md., and it is highly valued for its seafood, sea life, waterfowl, sport fishing, and recreational boating. At the same time, the bay is threatened by environmental degradation caused by man-induced pollution from a variety of sources.

The bay was once known for its great seafood production, especially blue crabs, clams and oysters. The plentiful oyster harvests led to the development of the skipjack, the state boat of Maryland, which is the only remaining working boat type in the United States still under sail power.

One of the most well-known seafood symbols of the Chesapeake, blue crabs support one of the Bay's largest and most valuable fisheries. They also support a way of life. Whether commercial watermen fishing wire pots or recreational crabbers dangling chicken necks, those who live in Bay country have come to depend on the blue crab for food, for income, for fun. Maryland blue crabs are a local seafood favorite.

• Blue Crab Recipes

• Maryland blue crab

The Chesapeake Bay was once home to oysters beyond our wildest imagination — oyster reefs built so tall that they grazed the bottoms of boats that sailed the Bay. Their meat grew so plump that those who partook required a knife and fork to cut them.

Oysters also played a key ecological role in the Chesapeake, filtering algae and providing habitat and shelter for other animals and underwater plants.

Today, the Bay stands at a difficult crossroads with their seafood populations. Decades of overharvesting and diseases such as Dermo and MSX have left the Chesapeake’s iconic oysters in a precarious state.

With the native oyster at historic lows, scientists and policy makers are exploring ways to restore oysters to the Bay.

• Awesome Seafood recipes

• Lobster, crab and seafood