Virginia is for...red crabs?
RED CRABS
We know Virginians are adventurous eaters, or at least adventurous marketers. Chefs there have tried to make a market out of rays, or skate, those cow-nose creatures that sting hard and devour crabs.
Now comes word that some enterprising fishermen, with the help of scientists, are trying to market the "red crab," a species found deep in the ocean in a ribbon of water stretching from North Carolina to Canada. Newport News reporter Patrick Lynch has the story here.
The guy fishing for the crabs moved his dock to Newport News, in large part due to fuel costs, but his timing couldn't be better, market-wise. With restrictions on the blue crab in the bay, maybe customers would want to eat the reds, which go for $60 a bushel.
Take a look at these guys. They're huge!
An interesting fact from Lynch's story: no one was really eating red crab until the early 1990s, when some fishermen decided to try to catch the species because other fisheries in New England were kaput, or at least no longer lucrative. So one wonders, in a few years, will be we hearing about restrictions on the red crabs? If we do, I wonder what they'll think of next. Jellyfish stew?
(AP photo above)
I report on the environment and Chesapeake Bay. A native of West Virginia, I have focused mainly on Maryland's environment since moving here in 1983. Along the way, I've crewed aboard a skipjack in the bay, canoed under city streets up the Jones Fall from the Inner Harbor, and gone deep underground in a western Maryland coal mine. Recently, I have been covering the growth and development transforming the landscape. I love seafood, rambles in the country and good stories. I hope to share some here.
Comments
Exactly. It's a race to the bottom. We've killed off and eaten the sea creatures at the top of the food chain, so we're forced to look down the line to what used to be considered trash fish. When we've wiped out all the red crabs and jellyfish, we'll be eating algae. Or Soylent Green. Google "tragedy of the commons."
Posted by: Frank | May 16, 2008 1:48 PM
Hey,
You omitted the most important part! How do they taste?
Posted by: james | May 16, 2008 1:59 PM
Your link is to the wrong species of Red Crab...it should be Chaceon quinquedens vice Gecarcoidea natalis in your link.
try this:
http://www.nero.noaa.gov/nero/fishermen/images/redcrab.html
They are going to start selling them at the commissary here at Langley AFB next week.
Posted by: gordon booker | May 16, 2008 2:11 PM
I haven't had them. But the article said they were "mild." I suspect that, because they are used in things like linguine, they're a bit more bland than our blue crabs. i don't know if you would eat them steamed. they're so much larger it would take a LONG time to finish a crab feast. That may be mroe time with family on a hot summer day than some can bear!
Posted by: Rona Kobell | May 16, 2008 2:13 PM
hey i need more information about crabs...
Posted by: jessica. | May 19, 2008 10:42 AM
Please let us know how they taste if you buy any at Langley...thanks!
Posted by: Rona KobellR | May 21, 2008 3:52 PM
I must say, they are very good in taste. They are like a snow crab in size and taste sort of like Lobster (sweet meat) Look at it this way, these crabs come from pure, clean, chemical and unpolluted water from the deep ocean. They are very good. As for the over fishing part, there has been an 18 month population study conducted before this fishery was opened. The fishermen made the decision to put a voluntary limit even though the marine biologists said there did not need to be one. There are only four boats able to fish so overfishing is out of the question. You can get the crabs at Old Point Packing in Newport News, Va - 757-247-0775. They you sell them alive or clustered.
Posted by: Fella | June 20, 2008 6:27 PM
I eat one of these crabs many year ago it was very good I love It. I live on the eastern shore and have eaten many blue crab. And tjhe red crab was just as good.
Posted by: James Jones | February 19, 2009 8:20 PM