For as long as I can remember, given I was born and raised in the state of Maryland, Old Bay has, and always will, go on everything. The first weekend of my freshman year, I took my first four college friends home with me. I had to show them an MD right of passage: crabs, freshly-caught that morning. Even though the crabs were seasoned with Old Bay, I explained that you still dip every bite into more Old Bay, and of course, they loved it. After, they had Old Bay on corn and fries and, if that wasn’t enough, my mom sent us back to school with a fresh bottle for dining hall meals.
While Old Bay Seasoning is traditionally used for seafood, you can (and should) put it on everything. From chicken to fries to popcorn to pizza to Goldfish, Marylanders are even obsessed with Old Bay Vodka, which is distilled locally in Frederick, Maryland and goes great in an orange crush with an Old Bay Seasoning rim.
How did Old Bay Seasoning get started?
Old Bay was invented by a Jewish immigrant, Gustav Brunn, who fled Nazi Germany and landed in Baltimore, Maryland with his family and a spice grinder, explained the Washington Post. As he struggled to find work, he decided to start his own spice business and set up shop across from the Baltimore wholesale fish market on the Inner Harbor. He noticed that fish market vendors used their own spice blends, but he thought he could make a better one.
The Washington Post reported that Brunn made his recipe look more complex by adding very small amounts of spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves — ingredients I’d never think about adding to seafood, but I’m sure glad he did.
It only took one crab steamer to give Brunn’s blend a shot, and vendors were instantly hooked. Originally called the Delicious Brand Shrimp and Crab Seasoning, the Baltimore Sun reported that it was eventually renamed to Old Bay after a steamship line that sailed between Baltimore and Norfolk.
Old Bay’s following
The Brunn family sold the company to another spice company in the 1980s, and McCormick purchased the Old Bay product line in 1990. And as we can all tell, Old Bay and others’ love for the seasoning has only continued to grow.
Since 2007, the University of Maryland has sent out a Maryland-inspired welcome box to all incoming freshman students, and while many of the products have changed, one thing hasn’t — the container of Old Bay Seasoning. In 2019, the university spent $41,700 to produce, assemble, and distribute the boxes from UMD Dining Services, which contained the classic container of Old Bay, a crab mallet, and a stylized bib inside. Incoming students love it, and it shows the pride people have not just for the university, but for the state and its culture.
Old Bay Seasoning has even grown to have its own social media pages, with 58,600 followers on Instagram and 86,300 on TikTok. It seems like a lot for a seasoning, but I get it — it’s Old Bay. The hastag “oldbay” even has 191,000 posts on Instagram and 133.3 million views on TikTok.
As time has gone on, competitors everywhere have tried to recreate the seasoning, but thanks to Brunn’s special touch, they couldn’t. The recipe has remained the same since the beginning, as the irreplaceable flavor of Old Bay has gone from a Maryland staple to a national treasure, and no matter where I go, I’ll always have a stock up of the classic spice.