Maryland Prepares For Onion-Inspired Crab Drop
Two vacationing Easton, Maryland residents witnessed Bermuda’s Onion Drop ceremony a few years ago and were inspired to create the Crab Drop to bring in the New Year in their home town.
These days they watch a big, fake crab slide down a pair of poles in the middle of their 300-year-old Chesapeake Bay town. The crab is 8 feet from claw to claw across and drops 20 feet.
“Kids pet it and get their pictures taken with it,” says Marie U’Ren, chief organiser of the event which features two New Year’s Eve crab drops.
“The first — at 9 p.m. — suits families with young children, while reminding people that 9 p.m. equals midnight in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, which suits Easton’s “mid-Atlantic” location.”
The oversized, red crustacean actually represents a cooked, blue crab — a culinary staple in Easton.
Richard and Suzanne Hood of Royal Oak, Maryland., suggested the crab drop — and created the first steel-reinforced, papier-mache crab — after witnessing the New Year’s Eve Onion Drop in St. George’s Bermuda.
The Onion Drop Ceremony originated in the town of St. George’s in the 1990s to commemorate New Year’s Eve and celebrate the Bermuda spirit.
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