DOVER — For the 22nd consecutive year, Delaware has failed to resolve the question of whether it has a distinct crab cake tradition or is, as a 2004 editorial in this publication first suggested, "simply Maryland with worse PR and a more convenient corporate tax structure."

The debate, which has simmered in church basements, crab shacks, and the occasional General Assembly subcommittee, shows no signs of resolution. If anything, it has deepened.

"We have our own thing," said Linda Costas, owner of Linda's Crab House in Lewes, with a conviction that suggested she had said this many times before. "Our cakes are lighter. Less filler. More crab."

Forty miles north, at a diner outside Wilmington, a man named Dave said the opposite with equal conviction.

"It's the same thing," said Dave, who declined to give his last name. "It's Old Bay and crab. Maryland invented it. We just live nearby."

Culinary historians — a phrase that, in this context, means two professors at the University of Delaware who agreed to speak on background — say the question is genuinely complicated.

Blue crabs have been harvested in Delaware Bay for centuries. Crab cakes, in some form, appear in Delaware cookbooks dating to the early 20th century. Whether these recipes constitute a distinct tradition or a regional variation of the Chesapeake style is, according to one professor, "a matter of framing."

"If you want Delaware to have its own crab cake, it does," she said. "If you want it to be Maryland's, it is. The crabs don't care."

At the center of the dispute is Old Bay seasoning, which was developed in Baltimore in 1939 and has since achieved a kind of regional dominance that some Delaware cooks find oppressive.

"I don't use Old Bay," said Costas. "I have my own blend."

She declined to describe the blend. When pressed, she said it contained "similar things."

A survey conducted by The Scrapple in 2023 found that 78% of Delaware crab cake recipes included Old Bay, 14% included "a spice blend that is essentially Old Bay," and 8% included Old Bay but described it as "just a starting point."

In 2019, State Representative Gail Fenton introduced a resolution declaring the Delaware crab cake a distinct culinary tradition deserving of official recognition. The resolution passed the House 38-3 but died in a Senate committee after a member from Sussex County argued it would "invite ridicule from Maryland."

Fenton, who has since retired, told The Scrapple she stands by the resolution.

"We have a state bird, a state flower, a state bug," she said. "We should have a state crab cake. One that is ours."

She paused.

"It would have Old Bay in it. Obviously. But it would be ours."

As of press time, Delaware does not have an official state crab cake. Maryland does not appear to be losing sleep over the competition. And Linda Costas is still making what she describes as a lighter, less-filler cake that is, by any reasonable measure, very good.

Dave, at the diner outside Wilmington, ordered the chicken sandwich.