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"But the large Jimmies go into baskets to be sold alive to the crab houses offering the freshly steamed hot-spiced hard crabs so popular around the Bay."

William Warner, Beautiful Swimmers: Waterman, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay

How can I interpret “hot” in “hot-spiced”? Does it mean the spices added are hot (temperature)? Or does it mean crabs are hot (temperature)? Or does “hot” here mean spicy?

spiced

Flavoured with spice. (Oxford Dictionary)

https://www.lexico.com/definition/spiced

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    I'd say they explicitly write hot-spiced, so it is not confused with anything. Neither with hot temperature, nor with mildy-spiced.
    – Bernhard Döbler
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 13:01

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As well as describing temperature, "heat" is used in English to describe the strength of spice in food - particularly chilli spice.

For example, on menus in 'Indian' restaurants, curries are often rated on a scale that goes from mild, to medium (or sometimes "medium-hot"), to hot.

Because both types of heat can describe food it can cause some confusion - if someone says "this chilli is hot" you may have to ask them if they mean it has a high temperature or if it is very spicy. Usually, context makes it clear.

In your example, they have hyphenated the words "hot-spiced" to make it clear that "hot" is referring to the degree of spice. If it were "hot, spiced crabs" then it would more likely be that they are served at a hot temperature.

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  • FWIW, if you are in Maryland, the dominant version of this "hot spice" mix is known by the brand name "Old Bay".
    – pboss3010
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 13:07

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