The Fascinating History Behind Maryland's Old Bay Seasoning You Might Not Know

It's best known as a spice blend for seafood, but the mixture known as Old Bay is much more versatile than that. Its uses range from seasoning all manner of meats and vegetables to even spicing alcoholic beverages. It's the one classic spice mix to season your french fries instead of just using salt, and Old Bay is also the seasoning your deviled eggs are begging for. But perhaps more interesting than this product's versatility is its fascinating history, extending back to a Jewish refugee who escaped from Nazi Germany.

Pre-World War II, a German-Jewish spice maker named Gustav Brunn was arrested with about 30,000 other Jewish men and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. His wife ultimately paid a considerable amount of money (surpassing $80,000 by today's monetary valuing) to a German lawyer, who was able to broker Brunn's release. The family members had already secured visas to travel to the United States, so upon his liberation they promptly set sail. Among the limited possessions Brunn was able to take with him was his hand-crank grinder for making spices.

Settling in Baltimore, Maryland, Brunn obtained work with the McCormick spice company, but he was fired shortly thereafter. Differing reports say he was terminated for being a Jew, while others say it was due to his lack of fluency in English. Brunn ultimately opened his own spice shop across from Baltimore's wholesale fish market, where the thriving blue crab business inspired him to create his own special spice blend for the popular seafood.

To make his flavor blend distinctive and prevent copycatting, Gustav Brunn incorporated some rather unusual spices like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, along with the more traditional flavorings for blue crab. He began giving out free samples and named the mixture Old Bay, after a local steamship line. The product soon caught on and exploded in popularity.

Old Bay Seasoning has since achieved a cult-like status, and residents of its birth state, Maryland, consider the product a key piece of the state's cultural identity – so much so that Marylanders use it on virtually everything, even as a wacky ice cream topping that you'll only find in Maryland.

In a rather ironic twist, in 1990 Old Bay was sold to McCormick, the company that had fired Brunn so many years before. The sale took place five years after the spice creator died. Though no longer manufactured by the company Brunn founded, the legendary spice blend lives on in countless kitchens and cupboards in tribute to its visionary maker, and it remains the key condiment of Maryland, frequently being used as essentially a replacement for salt.