Sure, Tampa is known for its Cuban sandwich—a tantalizing mash-up of Spanish, Italian, Swiss and German flavors served between two pieces of crusty Cuban bread created in the heyday of Ybor City, the Cigar Capital of the World at the turn of the 20th century—but there’s another iconic local dish born of the same era to try when in town: devil crab.
Rodney Kite-Powell, historian at the Tampa Bay History Center, says Tampa’s devil crab was inspired from the need of an inexpensive meal during the cigar industry strikes of the 1920s. Key ingredients like crabmeat–“the waters of Tampa Bay were teeming with blue crabs at the time”–and Cuban bread could be easily sourced at low to no cost.
“People weren’t going to sit-down restaurants, and generally cigar workers weren’t anyway, so they’re eating at home or getting something quick for lunch,” Kite-Powell told Travel + Leisure of the 1920s strikes. At the same time, it was common for restaurants to have side windows for walk-up Cuban sandwiches; they added devil crab to their menus.
Long before food trucks, enterprising business types began selling devil crab on-the-go from their motor scooters and bicycles equipped with insulated carriers. Perhaps the most beloved was the Devil Crab Man, Francisco Miranda, who peddled thousands of his devil crabs from the 1930s until he passed away in 1953.
“They’d make them at home and ride around the streets of Ybor, and later the port, and they would sell them to people kind of like a food truck of modern times,” said Kite-Powell of what became a popular street food.
Unlike Maryland crab cakes and Southern-style deviled crab, in which crabmeat is mixed with breading and spices, Tampa’s devil crab mixes fresh crabmeat with sofrito, or a blend of green peppers, onion, garlic, tomatoes (or tomato sauce or paste) and oregano sautéed in olive oil. Rather than pan-frying or baking in crab shells, the devil crab mix is traditionally formed into palm-sized football shapes and coated in a breadcrumb mix of day-old Cuban and white bread “chopped up into almost kind of a meal or a flour” before being deep-fried.
Devil crab can still be found on restaurant menus throughout Tampa, including the Silver Ring Café, which was in Ybor City in the 1930s; Brocato’s Sandwich Shop, where the devil crab softball-sized; Alessi Bakeries, another Tampa institution; and in Ybor City at Carmine’s and Columbia Restaurant, Florida’s oldest restaurant. For a twist on the original, try the Crabmeat Empanada at Mr. Empanada. Or, make devil crab at home with the Columbia Restaurant’s recipe.
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