Faux crab in his crab cakes
Wow.This little problem hadn't occurred to me to watch out for. I clearly don't eat in enough chain restaurants. And I didn't have much to tell Steve, who wrote this e-mail. EL
I recently dined at a local chain "Bistro" and ordered their Jumbo Lump Crab Cake. While the flavor was good I was a little suspicious of the lump crab. For the price, it had a good number of very large lumps. As I ate the crab cake I realized that the lumps were very uniformly the same size and shape. After careful examination (I pulled a lump apart by hand) I determined that the lump was actually a surimi type of formed crab meat. I even found a very small shell bit inside the lump. I have dubbed these "Crab McLumps". Other than my first instinct to call the Consumer Protection Agency I was curious if everyone else was aware of this fraud and I was the last to find out. What say you?
Comments
Phillips (the enemy of Maryland crab) applied for a patent on making fake lump crab meat from smaller pieces. I wasn't aware they were selling the stuff yet, but if so that might be what Steve ran into.
This was mentioned on this blog back in July. There were over 100 comments on the post, and the fake crab meat came up near the end.
Posted by: Hal Laurent | November 12, 2009 6:55 PM
yes, I remember the conversation about it, and I think they might be actually doing it, having accidentally bought Phillip "jumbo lump" recently. The crab had no flavor at all and was all the lumps were pretty similarly shaped.
I can't "officially" confirm, but it appears to be so...
Posted by: Joyce W. | November 12, 2009 8:39 PM
Sadly, I've become very leery of ordering crab cakes in restaurants nowadays. The legacy and reputation of the Maryland crab cake has been grieviously damaged.
Posted by: Hal Laurent | November 12, 2009 9:10 PM
Here's a passage from the U.S. Patent No. 7,390,248 Method for manufacturing formed lumps of meat:
Jumbo lumps of certain meat, such as crab meat for example, are more commercially valuable and command a higher sales price than smaller lumps or loose flakes thereof. In the instance of crab meat, in order to get the jumbo lumps of meat from the two back fins of the crab, professional pickers are required who have acquired the skill of removing the jumbo lumps intact. Having professional pickers remove jumbo lumps intact is costly and time consuming, so processes for molding smaller pieces of meat together to create formed jumbo lumps have been developed.
So, is there a legal definition of jumbo lump crab?
Does a "formed lump of crab meat" = jumbo lump crab?
You can read the entire appetite-withering patent at
http://baltimorecrabs.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/phillips-patent-for-fake-lump-crab-meat/
Posted by: Laura Lee | November 13, 2009 8:37 AM
Well, the one bit of good news for the consumer who purchases shelled crabmeat for cooking at home is that it is easy to avoid this sham. Since Phillips either has or will retain a patent on this 'process' we can just avoid purchasing Phillips crabmeat and crabmeat products.
Dining out is the interesting problem. I can see it now:
"Waiter, where did the chef source his crab meat for the crab cakes?"
"Why, Phillips of course!"
"Hmmm. I'll have the scrod instead."
Posted by: Maggi | November 13, 2009 10:01 AM
Thanks for the clues guys. On the Phillips Foodservice website there is a listing of the different grades of crab meat (Colossal, Jumbo, Lump, etc) with Phillips' definitions of each. Don't know if they're legal definitions but I will concede that Phillips is an authority. Anyway, the point is the last item on the list is something called "Culinary Jumbo" (with limited availability). Here is the definition: "Jumbo lumps made by extracting 100% crab meat from the whole crab and forming into large lumps. Phillips patented process produces natural shape jumbo lumps with no binder involved. Advantages: large lumps hold together better under handling; consistent sizing; and high quality raw material. Great for use in crab cakes for impressive jumbo appearance." So we know what the product is, now the question is: Should a restaurant be allowed to call a crab cake made with this product a "Jumbo Lump Crab Cake"?
Posted by: Steve | November 13, 2009 2:30 PM
Steve, IMHO, no. I think it's deceptive, in the omission of information about the crab meat. The crab meat that they are binding together is not limited to bay crabs either. Another piece of missing information.
Posted by: Joyce W. | November 13, 2009 2:55 PM
Just got off the phone with the Md Department of Health, Food Control Division. Apparently there is no legal definition for these terms, so restaurants are free to call their products anything they like. As always, buyer beware!
Posted by: Steve | November 13, 2009 3:55 PM
About a year ago, I had the misfortune of working for a well known and very reputable restaurant in the northern suburbs. The owners, Two brothers, would buy enormous quantities of imported pasteurized crabmeat from whoever was selling. At one point, we had cases of jumbo lump crabmeat from Vietnam and every lump was identical in size and shape. EVERYONE! and they held together beautifully. But they were processed to be like that. Phillips isn't the only culprit in this scam, they must be everywhere
Posted by: MDtopdad | November 13, 2009 6:02 PM
Sad. I wish that all restaurants were capable of using only the highest quality ingredients. Alas, those are frequently more expensive.
Steve, great investigatory bloggercommenterism.
Posted by: Mitch | November 13, 2009 8:24 PM