Florida is famous for its seafood, with dishes like grilled snapper, blackened grouper, fried shrimp and baked pompano en papillote satisfying diners from Pensacola to Key West. However, if you want your seafood with a healthy dash of history, I suggest you find one of the dozen or so Cuban restaurants in the Tampa Bay area that serve the area’s own creation — the devil crab (or deviled — more on that in a moment).
Unlike the meals listed above, which are more often associated with a sit-down dining experience, Tampa’s devil crabs have always been a mobile meal. Much like the city’s famous Cuban sandwiches, Tampa’s devil crabs also grew out of the cigar industry of Ybor City and West Tampa in the early 20th century. Allegedly born out of the necessity and desperation of the 1920 cigar workers’ strike, the devil crab was an inexpensive way for striking workers to feed themselves and their families.
So, what is and isn’t a devil crab and is there really an “-ed” at the end? First, it is not the same as a Maryland crab cake or the traditional Southern-style deviled crab. Crab cakes generally have the breading mixed in and are pan-fried disks. Old South deviled crabs are similarly mixed with bread crumbs and spices but baked in crab shells.
Tampa’s devil crabs are a mix of blue crab meat and sofrito — a blend of diced onion, green peppers, garlic, tomatoes (sometimes tomato sauce and/or tomato paste), and oregano sautéed in olive oil. The crab and sofrito are cooked together, formed into palm-sized, football-shaped portions, then coated in breadcrumbs — usually made from slightly stale Cuban bread — and deep-fried until golden. Though generally written “devil crab,” several restaurants and street vendors call them deviled crab. Regardless of the tense, the term comes from the spicy nature of the croquette, originally from red pepper flakes and other spices, but now more often from hot sauce added by the diner.
The popularity of devil crabs outlasted the 1920 cigar workers’ strike and took on a life of its own. Throughout the Roaring ’20s and the Depression decade of the 1930s, vendors and restaurants in Ybor City — and a few in West Tampa — continued serving devil crabs. Street vendors, in particular, literally spread the word and flavor of the treat. Perhaps the most famous was Francisco Miranda, the Devil Crab Man, who rode through the streets of Ybor and the shipyards just to the south from the 1930s until his death in 1953, selling thousands and becoming a legend in the process.
Devil crabs grew into the mainstream as Ybor City evolved from an industrial center to a tourist destination. More restaurants began offering the fried delicacy, with slight variations — generally centered on spice level and the amount of breading. Locally sourced crab is becoming harder to find, as the days of coaxing crabs into a dip net with a chicken neck tied to a string are mostly behind us. Still, you can walk into dozens of restaurants in Ybor City, West Tampa and even Brandon and Carrollwood and find a delicious devil crab — or deviled crab — on the menu.
Rodney Kite-Powell is a Tampa-born author, the official historian of Hillsborough County and the director of the Touchton Map Library at the Tampa Bay History Center, where he has worked since 1995.
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