Life & Wisdom Quote by H. L. Mencken

Mencken’s genius here is how he smuggles a whole worldview into what looks like a tourism-board pleasantry. On the surface, it’s local color: Baltimore has crabs, Baltimore loves them, Baltimore has options. But Mencken isn’t writing a cookbook; he’s staging a miniature argument about taste, civic pride, and the democratic alchemy of a city that turns the same raw material into endless, equally defensible variations.

The line works because of its sly overstatement. “Fifty ways” is the kind of rounded, braggy number people use when they’re selling you on a place, and Mencken keeps it deliberately unverified. He’s mimicking the voice of regional folklore, then letting the claim stand with a straight face. That deadpan is doing the heavy lifting: it flatters Baltimore while gently teasing the human need to mythologize ordinary pleasures into tradition.

Subtextually, it’s also a quiet rebuke to cultural snobbery. The idea that “all of them are good” rejects the hierarchy of “proper” preparation, the one correct method guarded by gatekeepers. Mencken, a master at puncturing pretension, signals that the point isn’t refinement but abundance and conviviality - a city’s confidence expressed through a messy, communal food.

Context matters, too. Mencken built much of his persona by writing from Baltimore against the self-seriousness of national elites. This crab aphorism is local chauvinism with a wink: a celebration of provincial specificity that doubles as a critique of anyone who thinks sophistication requires leaving home.