Shanghai Street View: Setting the Table for Hairy Crabs 沪经动向：摆好桌子迎接大闸蟹

It’s already mid-September, and that means seafood lovers from Hong Kong to as far afield as Japan and Singapore are foaming at the mouth with expectation for the annual arrival of one of Shanghai’s most famous exports — the hairy crab. As a resident of Asia for a decade now, I know that these crabs have developed an almost legendary status throughout the region. Their arrival each season from the famous Yangcheng Lake in nearby Jiangsu province is an annual rite of passage for the end of summer and beginning of fall, and is marked by big banquets of seafood lovers feasting on these green crustaceans with beady eyes and thick mounds of muddy-looking hair on their front claws.

I’ll be direct and say that I personally could never understand the fascination with the crabs, which I always found too troublesome to eat for the rewards of small quantities of meat that tasted good enough but surely weren’t worth all that effort. And then there was all that matted hair on their claws, which added a “gross” factor on top of everything else. But clearly I’m in the minority with my lack of enthusiasm, as nearly anyone in Shanghai will sing the praises of these crustacean delicacies, known locally as dajiaxie, and indeed seafood enthusiasts will gush about them in markets from Taipei to Hong Kong and Singapore.

Adding to the lore of the hairy crab, new and intriguing reports have surfaced this year of controversies surrounding cheap crabs being sold online over the Taobao website, much to the dismay of traditional crab sellers who have filed a complaint with their industry association. And then of course there’s the perennial problem of fakes, with merchants and restaurants claiming Yangcheng Lake pedigrees for crabs that actually come from inferior locations.

For all the enthusiasts out there, the magic date this year is September 22, or this Saturday, when tons of hairy crabs stuffed into green mesh bags and foaming from the mouth will pile into Shanghai’s wholesale seafood markets, where they will quickly be sorted and distributed to eagerly awaiting retailers and restaurant owners. According to the Hairy Crab Industry Association, this year’s harvest will be a bit bigger than last year’s, up by 2,300 tons to be exact. But costs have also risen by about 8 percent, meaning the final cost of the crabs could be relatively similar to last year’s, which saw the best crabs typically sell for 100 to 120 yuan per kilogram, or about $18.

In an effort to better understand the phenomenon and the machinery that keeps it afloat, I made a trip out to one of Shanghai’s biggest wholesale seafood markets in the Changning district, paying a visit on the hairy crab section where business has already begun but clearly wasn’t anything near full speed. A friendly stall manager surnamed Zhang, working at one of the few stalls with crabs available, informed me the market will operate around the clock starting on September 22 with the arrival of the first Yangcheng Lake crabs. That will be followed by the arrival of equally tasty crabs from the less well-known Hongze Lake, also in Jiangsu province, in mid-October.

He informed me that the green mesh bags of hairy crabs already for sale at the few open stalls were all from inferior lakes, even though restaurants that offered them for sale to diners would undoubtedly claim them as Yangcheng Lake originals. Likewise, he added, many of the crabs offered online would likely be fakes, with inferior product masquerading as crabs from Yangcheng, Hongze and other famous lakes.

So, what exactly makes crabs from Yangcheng Lake so tasty? Zhang informed me that the 2 most important factors are the quality of lake water, and the composition of the muck at the bottom of each lake. Apparently Yangcheng and Hongze both have very good water for crab breeding, hence the superior quality.

At the end of the day, the trip to the market was both enjoyable and educational for me, and made me more appreciative of the crab trade and thousands of people who make it work. But I still stand by my previous assertion that the crabs are up far more trouble to eat than they’re worth, even though thousands of seafood lovers will strongly disagree with me when they line up and pay big money to start feasting on the delicacy later this week.